


Beautiful Creatures

by Jamz24



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: (And you get extra bonus art from Mari bc she is brilliant, A big-ass Evak romance novel with aaaallll the feels, A masked orgy with too many kinks to list, AND A WHOLE ASS EPILOGUE CHAPTER CUZ WE JUST COULDN'T SLOW DOWN, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Artist!Even, Blood Mentions (not Evak's), Boatman!Jonas, Doctor!Yousef, Drama & Romance, Evak - Freeform, Evak AU, Evak Smut, Evak are finally endgame hurrah!, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid!Isak, Genderqueer Character, Huge melodramatic climax, M/M, Multi, Multiships, Other, Pansexual Character, Pining, Prostitute!Isak, Psychological Trauma, Psychopath!Niko, SKAM Big Bang, SKAM Big Bang 2019, Tragic!Magnus, Victorian Gay Cure, Wife!Eva, mentions of past suicide attempt, pansexual!even
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:50:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 54,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamz24/pseuds/Jamz24
Summary: Victorian Evak Genderqueer Romance. In 19th century Christiania, rich artist!Even struggles to find love while prostitute!Isak tries to earn enough money to leave the slums and find a new life in America. Fate conspires to bring them together - but did the same fate once tear them apart?Welcome to #SkamBigBang 2019! I'll be posting chapters regularly so stay tuned!A huge THANK YOU to the amazing Mari (miranhas-art on Tumblr) whose beautiful genderqueer Evak pictures inspired this fic, and whom I've been lucky enough to work with for the illustrations!And big ups to the fabulous Haveyouever who beta-ed AND fact-checked the historical accuracy of this fic - from the exact times of sunrise to the cost of a Victorian blow job - you're both incredible!





	1. A Tale of Two Cities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Between 1845 – 1945, Oslo was called Christiania/Kristiania. At the end of the 19th century homosexuality was illegal in Norway, and also classed as a mental illness, along with gender fluidity, trans identities and transvestism.
> 
> A “molly” was (usually British) slang for a male prostitute, who might or might not wear women’s clothes. Isak appears here in multiple identities (Kitten, Isabella, Isak) and the name/pronoun will indicate the identification at any time.

 

Even leaned out of the quickly-clicking hansom cab watching the tall houses of Arbin’s Gate roll rapidly past. It was the first coach ride he’d taken since he had been discharged from the asylum in Gaustad, and colours and noise were still unfamiliar to him; the swift hooves of the black horses and the warm summer sun seemed a little too loud, a little too bright after the muted white walls that had surrounded him for months. But these new sights and sounds were exciting too, a taste of the busy, colourful life from which he had been kept for too long. It had been winter when he last saw the outside world.

Disembarking outside no. 21, he glanced around quickly to see if anyone was watching, brushing down his pale grey gentleman’s double-breasted jacket and adjusting his cravat. An old grandmother in shawl and bonnet limped past, glancing at him curiously, and Even blushed, turning away to hide his face in the shadow of his silk top hat. After she had passed, the street was deserted, but somehow it still felt as if all eyes were on him as he stole guiltily up the high stone steps and pulled hard on the bell-handle.

 _Doctor Y. Acar. Psych. Drs Phil MCS_ read the brass plaque on the door.

 _This is how it begins,_ Even thought to himself. _This is how I lose myself, and everything I remember._

***

Kitten tripped smartly down the cobbles, veil pulled over her face and carrying a pair of shopping-bags from the haberdasher’s in Sentrum slung over one arm. She turned into an evil smelling alley on the lower end of Vika borough, daintily picking her way over the noxious-smelling puddles, an incongruous sight in her yellow dress and fur coat amid the filth.

Here the pretty, white-and-pink painted houses petered out in favour of the staggering, wood-built hovels of the Tjernenspasse; a maze of foul-smelling streets heaped with rubbish that adjourned the filth and grime of the docks at Aker Brygge. She walked fast, not looking to either side; it wasn’t safe to linger out here alone.

Life in the alleys was alive with curses and yells, people fighting and vomiting outside the public-houses on the corner, and here and there a vagrant, leg bandaged and bloodied, would sit in a wheelbarrow begging change from passers-by. She ducked, smartly, to avoid the contents of a chamber pot flung from a window above that whistled suddenly past her ear.

“Hey! Hey Miss!”

An unsteady voice was behind her and a hand was plucking roughly at her dress. Kitten picked her skirts up and walked faster, not looking at him.

“Miss! Oi! Too busy to say hello to a lad, are you?”

The hand yanked at her and brought her up sharply; it belonged to a wide-faced young man, flushed with drink and his cap askew. He grinned as he turned her unwillingly to face him, the white flesh of her wrist gripped painfully by his fat fingers.

“What’s a nice young girl like you doing in this part of town then?”

Kitten struggled, but she was held firm. The man leered and leaned closer, crowding her against the dirty alley-wall. “Let’s have a look under that veil of yours, shall we? See if the face matches that pretty ass?”

There were passers-by in the streets around them but nobody stopped to help; a girl being groped in Tjernenspasse had no one to blame but herself. “Get your hands off me,” she said icily, with all the force she could muster, but the youth was persistent, leaning the full weight of his body against her as he reached for her veil and pulled it up with a hard yank.

There was a brief, amazed pause, before his eyes widened in shock, horror, and a glint of arousal.

“You’re – you’re that molly! From the molly-house!”

His grip relaxed suddenly, and Kitten took advantage of his surprise to punch him straight on the nose with her free small fist. He reeled back, tripping on the cobbles, and she followed it up with two swift kicks in the balls that left him coughing and gagging on his knees, hands shoved between his legs.

“You bloody bitch!” he groaned, retching helplessly. “You fucking – _freak_!”

Kitten calmly rearranged her coat and checked that she hadn’t dropped any of her silks and laces from the haberdasher’s shopping bag.

“It’s been a pleasure to meet you, but if you’ll excuse me,” she said with dignity, “I have to go to work.”

 ***

The room wasn’t how Even had imagined it; it was wood-panelled and book-lined, rather than the clean white walls of Gaustad asylum. A fire burned in the grate and the housekeeper, no doubt accustomed to receiving a long line of men of Even’s sort, brought him tea, face averted, and left him to his reflections. He thumbed through a couple of periodicals left on the coffee-table, and gazed at the prints above the fireplace – drawings of ancient Greece, Constantinople and Mesapotamia, which pricked Even’s jaded interest; Dr. Acar must, he thought, be a man of esoteric tastes.

Much to his surprise, Dr. Acar was a young man, around Even’s own age, in his mid-twenties, dressed in a sober dark suit and bow tie. He was good looking – Even hated how he noticed that first of all – with longish dark hair, olive skin, and a thin toothbrush moustache on his upper lip. His second thought was how in his colouring and features he reminded Even of – and he choked away _that_ thought as quickly as it had appeared.

Acar came easily towards Even, hand extended, and motioned him to sit down.

“Doctor Dahl referred your case to my care,” he said gently. “Do you understand why you’re here, Mr. Naesheim?”

Even stared down at his twisted fingers in his lap. “I think I do. Yes.”

“You were referred here because of the – unfortunate incident last year,” said Acar, reaching for a thick file of papers. “Your family were very eager that it should be kept from the police.”

Even sighed, burying his face in his palms. “Yes. Yes, I know.”

“How old are you, Mr. Naesheim?”

“Twenty four. Twenty five in February.”

“The file says that you have a wife?” Even nodded. “And a baby?”

“Yes; nearly two years old.”

“Could you outline to me the reasons that you attempted suicide last year?” Acar asked softly, dipping his pen in the ink bottle and hovering the nib over his pad.

The room seemed suddenly very close and quiet. Blood boomed in Even’s head. _Thud thud thud_. His heart felt leaden and heavy. Acar waited patiently. Sweat prickled on Even’s palms. The clock over the mantlepiece ticked out the seconds of unending time. Tick tock. _Tick_ tock. _Tick tock_.

“Mr. Naesheim?” Acar looked concerned. “Would you like some more tea?”

Even shook his head. “No – no thank you.” He breathed out, raspily, as if even that tiny movement might bring all the parts of his body crashing down, the body that he had tried so hard to master, the body that felt old and crumbling before he had even reached the pinnacle of his strength from the pressure of the grief and agony within it.

“What is it, Mr. Naesheim? Can I – can I call you Even? Would that help?”

Even clenched his teeth. A single tear trickled down his cheek.

“Even?” Acar leaned forward. “This – the help I’m offering you – will only work if you’re fully and absolutely honest with me. Do you understand that? _Entirely_ honest.”

Even quickly withdrew his hand before Acar could reach it. This was it. This was the moment where he stood to lose everything and condemn himself – but under Acar’s gentle, disarming gaze he could no longer find it in him to pretend any more.

“Don’t touch me,” he whispered. “I’m – I’m an unspeakable. Of the Oscar Wilde sort.”

The famous English playwright Oscar Wilde had been imprisoned three years before, after the scandal of his love affair with the beautiful Lord Alfred Douglas. It had left a deep impression on society and a new, dawning recognition in all circles that some men were _different_ to others – to be feared, ridiculed, imprisoned and bankrupted; and in some countries, executed.

Even clenched his fists, flinching at the words that came out of his mouth, bowing his head at their hideous echo. He wasn’t sure what he expected – derision, perhaps, or horror; shock, and condemnation certainly – and his muscles were so tensed for fight or flight that he at first could not register the doctor’s reaction.

“I see,” murmured Acar mildly, as if Even had confessed to a mild case of stomach ache. “And when did this – condition first manifest itself?”

Even stared at him, so confused that he could barely understand what was happening. Why was Acar not getting up, face twisted with loathing, or calling the police to have him arrested for crimes against nature? Why was he sitting there so calmly, taking notes as if this was something – _normal_?

“From childhood maybe?” Acar gazed at him politely. “Or was it something that you noticed later – at university perhaps?”

“What …” Even was finding it hard to speak. “Sorry. I’m not used to – talking about this with anyone.”

“Mr. Naesheim,” said Acar softly. “You are by no means the first man – or woman – who has come to me in distress about this. You need feel no shame. Everything said within these walls is strictly confidential.”

The doctor smiled, a rare smile that lit up his face and made Even’s heart bump slightly in his chest. He hated that too, as he always hated himself when a pretty man paid him attention, and part of him wanted to get up straight away and walk out and never think of this again.

But at the same time – he was here because – he needed to _fix_ this.

Acar was the best doctor of the mind in town. His fees weren’t cheap, but Even’s wealthy family was willing to pay them. The end of the road had been reached back last November when he had taken a cocktail of opium pills and Benedictine liquor, and after six months in an asylum strapped to a bed and the screams of other patients ringing in his ears it wasn’t a road that Even wanted to travel again.

Acar cleared his throat, all business. “Let’s come back to that later, perhaps. You have sexual congress with your wife?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Sometimes.”

“And the times you don’t?”

“I go to my study and paint. I do a lot of painting. They say it relieves my nerves.”

“Do you pleasure yourself?”

Even blushed darkly, biting his lip in embarrassment.

“Yes.”

“Do you fantasise about men or women while you do so?”

“Uhhh … both.”

“Do you seek out – any other sexual activities?”

Even hesitated.

***

“You’re late, Kit!” came a rough voice from the uppermost window of the toppling, boarded-up house when Kitten unlocked the door. “Customers are already here!”

Kitten rolled her eyes and marched inside, picking up her skirts as she made her way up the musty, flea-speckled stairs to the attic apartments. As she reached the second floor the door burst open and a large burly dock-worker fell insensible in her path, flat on his back, blood running from his nose from a fierce punch by another, similarly inebriated dockhand. Kitten stepped over him without missing a beat; in her mind she was already thinking of the dress she would order with the new trimmings; green silk, perhaps, with the yellow roses in lacework around the collar to set off her golden hair.

Up another flight of stairs, and she reached the little nexus of apartments that made up the molly-house. Out of all the doors in the building these were washed and painted, and there was an iron fire-escape where satisfied clients were able to make their entrances and exits without being viewed by the outside world. There were murmurs and a gust of coarse laughter from the waiting-room; it sounded like there were four or five men in there awaiting her company.

“Did you get my absinthe?” shouted the voice, but Kitten was already in her bedroom, shaking off her robe and kicking off her outdoor slippers. She fluffed up her hair and gazed at herself in the mirror, taking five minutes to brush a dark ochre over her eyelashes and paint her lips with pink paste, dotting small puffs of powder over her cheeks to dust away the grime of the alleys outside.

The next moment there was a bang on the door and a large man, dressed like a merchant from the rich side of town, lurched into the doorway.

“About time too,” he snarled, moving towards her. “On your knees, you little cow.”

***

Even looked down, biting his lip and gazing at his teacup – porcelain, with the handle shaped like a swan about to take flight. Next to him Acar waited patiently, silver pencil poised above the pad on his lap.

The question hovered in the air between them. 

_Do you seek out any other sexual activities?_

Even had sampled the goods, so to speak; the boys who waited down along Pan Alley when the gas lamps were lit; or the soldiers and sailors who wandered around the port late at night on shore-leave. There were many haunted, lonely figures like himself who walked the streets at night, wrapped up in a greatcoat and their hats pulled down over their faces.

But the youths who waited on street corners had to be tough and whiplash hard to survive; whereas Even preferred pretty boys and beautiful young men; slender and fine-boned, with delicate features and long eyelashes. He liked conversation and flirting, glasses of wine and the slow thrill of seduction, not a bony, loveless embrace in a dark corner or public convenience. He didn’t lust after hoary older men, or rough Army-types, though such were plentiful in the streets. Even liked male refinement and beauty and everything that normal young men weren’t supposed to love.

At first he’d tried to convince himself that he liked some boys because they looked like girls, before he realised that wasn’t the case. He certainly found girls attractive; visually and sexually, and he could always enjoy his small box of smutty female nudes photographed in a dirty studio somewhere; plump limbs in suspenders and hair loose and tumbling down; face turned to the camera in wanton challenge.

But for as long as he could remember, boys had turned his head also; in the locker rooms or the swimming pools, the music-hall and the dark-eyed young men in the adverts for _Campbell’s Cigarettes!_ And it was this other longing – the desire for male company not only in his friendships but also in his bed – which had crept like a slow, shameful trickle through his life, until it had become a dirty flood that had threatened to overwhelm him.

He had married Eva when he was twenty to try to push the longings down. He thought he was in love; he believed he might be in love – Eva was a gentle soul, and rich, though none too bright. For the first couple of years he thought he had found his cure at last, he was having constant, regular, satisfying sex, and his brain was no longer plagued by images of slender young men in high-cut riding gear or oiled-up athletes in Greek sculpture. But as time went on and he lost the novelty of the new, and Eva revealed herself to be shallow and dull and finally thick with child, Even lost interest in whatever he had desired in her. And then his hidden attractions – the young men, eyes bright and smiling on the sports field, the youths dressed as girls in the theatre or the tanned and muscled sunbathers on the beach – had come back in full force until he could no longer keep the dam up from the force of the water battering behind it.

“Do you seek out any other sexual activities?” repeated Acar delicately, as if Even were a wild creature that might be frightened off by too fast an approach.

“Sometimes,” admitted Even, his face red with shame.

***

Kitten spat delicately into the porcelain bowl that was kept next to the bed for such purposes and wiped her mouth. The heavily-breathing client stood above her with breeches unbuttoned, shaking the last drops from his cock over her face until they stained the bosom of her white dress.

“Come on, you little bitch,” the man mumbled. “Lick it all up.”

 “Excuse me?” Kitten hissed at him, wiping the sticky dribbles from her robe in dismay. “This is _real silk_ , you know!”

Kitten always dressed exquisitely – she was known for it in the molly-house – pretty outfits of white or gold silk that set off her long and curling gold hair, and high-heeled sandals studded with paste-glass jewellery. Today she had a string of pearls around her neck and hooped bangles around her slender wrists like an Arabian queen. “This outfit cost me nearly ten kroner, and you’re not the only person who’s going to see it today!”

The man zipped himself up and sneered at her. “I already paid you for a 25 øre suck, and that’s all you’re getting out of me today. Here, I’ll clean it up for you,” and spat wetly and deliberately on her, a thick clod of saliva running down her front and mingling with the spatters already on it.

Kitten got to her feet, trembling with fury. “How dare you! This is the dress I wear to work!”

“Who cares if you’re wearing a dirty dress or not,” sniffed the man, holding her off easily with one meaty hand as she lunged at him. “There’ll be more mess down your front by the end of the day, and no man alive will care.”

“I care!” hissed Kitten, swiping at him with her nails. “This is a _decent_ establishment, not a dirty stinking opium-den!”

“Shut up, you little whore!” cried the man, grabbing her hair with one hand and slapping her full across the face with the other; once, twice, three times.

Kitten stood stunned, holding her hand to her cheek for a moment, before she turned and banged furiously on the door behind her.

“Chris!” bellowed Kitten. “Christoffer! This man’s trying to run off without paying!”

“Hang on! I’ve paid! I’ve paid already!” protested the man, but it was too late.

There was a thunder of feet from the landing and the door flew open. In came a tall, good-looking man dressed in a brown velvet coat and gold shirt; a shock of glossy dark-brown hair flying above two sly-looking, heavy-lidded eyes.

“Trying to run off without paying, eh? Taking Kitten’s favours for free? Come here, you little bastard,” he shouted, grabbing hold of the man’s collar and throwing him to the floor.

Kitten watched in satisfaction over her shoulder in the mirror, calmly powdering her face to cover over the red slap-mark on her cheek, as Chris kicked and punched the man until his face was a mess of blood and tears. Once he was lying almost dead on the floor, Kitten knelt over him, pushed her small hand into his breeches pocket and brought out his wallet.

“I’m taking my payment, and I’m taking interest for damage caused,” she told him, pocketing three kroner into her receptacle.

“Here, give me that!” Chris took the money out of her palm swiftly and slapped a few coins back by way of return. “I’ll take care of it, my lady.”

Kitten looked at him in dismay. “But I need to get my dress cleaned!”

Chris grinned easily. “Sorry, darling. I get any confiscated goods; you just get what you suck for, remember? You’ll have to pay for any washing expenses out of your salary.”

He dragged the unconscious client out by his heels to dump him unceremoniously in the alley outside, and as he lumbered back in, Kitten raised her large green eyes to him, kissing his bruised knuckles teasingly.

“My hero,” she whispered prettily, letting a small smile play around her cupid’s-bow mouth. “You saved me.”

“That’s right, Kitty.” Chris thrust his face at her and kissed her hungrily and wetly, squeezing her bottom hard. She smelled the rough liquor on his breath and felt how he swayed. “Can’t have them treating you like that.”

Kitten wound her arms around his neck. “You’re such a man,” she breathed saucily into his ear. “How about a quickie before those sailors downstairs get up here?”

Chris’s eyes gleamed.

A few minutes later, sweating and satisfied, he pulled out of her and rearranged his breeches, whistling a jaunty tune as he went. Kitten waved him off sweetly before opening her palm to reveal the client’s wallet that she had lifted from the pimp’s pocket.

With any luck he’d soon be too drunk even to remember.

_Five kroner._

“Sucker,” she whispered, tucking the money safely in the hiding place underneath her bed, along with all the others.

 

_**DO LEAVE ME A COMMENT OR KUDOS TO TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT!!! .....**_

_**_**NEXT CHAPTER COMING UP!** _ ** _

_****_

***

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	2. The Muse and the Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even struggles to get over his past trauma under Yousef's gentle psychotherapy, while it's just another day at work in the slums as "Kitten" satisfies a long list of clients ...

 

The wood fire crackled in the doctor’s grate; the housekeeper had stoked it up without Even noticing. He sat plunged in bewilderment, staring at his hands lying on his knee. His shirt and suit was soaked in sweat although he felt cold all over.

“Let’s go back to my first question.” Acar started a fresh sheet of paper. “When did you notice your – _inclinations_ starting?”

_Always._

If Even really had to think about it, his conscious realisation came through the pictures in the art books at school. He had loved drawing and painting – he’d never been any good on the sports field, and the librarian house-master hadn’t insisted on it. Instead he’d allowed Even free rein in his study, and the sixteen-year old boy had spent long hours pulling out the dusty old art-history books and gazing in awe at the contents.

There were engravings and pictures of sculptures of boys and young men, naked and muscles extended; some of them with their cocks showing and others holding and caressing each other. Pictures like this had made Even’s skin heat up and his stomach flutter and he kept turning the pages, entranced at the wonderful lost world of the Greeks in which he found himself, a world that celebrated the love of the body so different from the stifling and sexless society that he was growing up in.

His favourite print had been called _The Abduction Of Ganymede_ by an unknown ancient sculptor, featuring the god Zeus carrying a beautiful, naked youth in his arms. The boy had been sleeping, or unconscious which made it doubly arousing that his clothes had been removed; he had long golden hair and a small mouth that looked like a rose petal. You could see his bare bottom and the small bud between his legs, and Even had stared at that image for a long time, until his face was burning and he was so hard it was beginning to hurt. He had needed to seek sanctuary in the bathroom to take his cock out and stroke it immediately until his hands got sticky and he was suddenly gasping for breath, as much from joy as from surprise.

Later he had removed the picture from the book and kept it under his bed to look at every night. This little nightly ritual happened all year until he was seventeen and became part of him as much as his love of puppies or his predilection for krumkake; the beautiful youth was his constant bed-companion when he closed his eyes, and Even’s febrile imagination supplied the details.

From seventeen life became harder. It was apparent that to be a real man you should have a particular role in society and particular tastes in life, and Even became very aware that he was neither thick-skinned nor stupid enough to be a real man. Though outwardly he boasted with his peers about girls and joined in the bawdy locker-room talk, he had also by this time learned of the vices of the Greeks and their sexual practices which made him shamefully aroused at the thought – in history class he caught a shiver at references to the Theban Band of soldiers when he discovered the one hundred and fifty pairs of male lovers who made up its fighting ranks.

From then on he scoured the classics for smut and found lots of it; the love story of Achilles and Patroclus, the slave Sporus who the Emperor Nero took as a wife and dressed in women’s clothes, Alexander the Great and his male lover Hephaestion. When he came across the Greek practice of _διαμηρίζειν_ ("to do something between the thighs of a youth,”) it pricked Even’s interest sharply; like many virgins of the time, intercrural sex with someone of his own age and gender was something he could more easily understand than the murky world of married sexuality or the mechanics of where babies came from.

Soon it became the one thing that he most lusted after; when he slid his hand up and down himself at night he imagined the thrill of being able to rub himself between the slippery thighs of another boy, feel soft yielding flesh against his hardness instead of the tedious familiarity of his own palm, feeling as he did so the exultant feeling of flying as he soared into the sun, before gasping in pleasure at his own release that dripped stickily over his bare stomach.

Then on the eve of his eighteenth birthday everything changed.

***

Kitten was the best in the business; a true-gold whore with a heart of stone. She was the prize trick in the molly-house run by Christoffer Schistad in the maze of dirty streets outside the docks at Aker Brygge, and such was the demand that sometimes it would take days to arrange an appointment with her and unexpected visitors would often be left disappointed. On special occasions such as the May Day festival or when the ships came into port, the queue would snake down the street. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do, nor anything that she wasn’t accomplished at, and satisfaction from her arts was absolutely guaranteed.

She had lost count of the men who had visited her; the businessmen and the sailors, the soldier-cadets and the clergymen, the aged grandfathers and the young virgin grooms brought by their fathers to learn the skills needed for their wedding nights. She lost count of the members that she’d sucked and fucked over the years, or the amount of aqua vitae that had dripped down her legs or her face.

Sometimes she found it easier to think of her work in terms of cocks as the faces of all the men were blurred to her; when she was face down or on her knees all men looked the same, whereas every cock had its own individual nature and character.

There had been big cocks, small cocks, fat cocks, thin cocks, barely-there cocks and cocks which had sustained injuries from the wars almost too horrific to look at. Though many establishments bore signs saying NO BLACKS NO GYPSIES NO HERETICS Schistad ran an open-door establishment where cocks of all kinds were welcome, from African cocks to Anglo-Saxon ones, cocks from Arabia and cocks from the Orient; from the Australias, the Americas, the deserts and the steppes, all sizes and shapes, religions and persuasions, mostly singly but often two or three together at different ends. Cocks that liked to be in her mouth and others that preferred her ass, cocks that liked to come in her and cocks that liked to come over her. Cocks that were palatable and cocks that tasted foul; cocks with large heads and others with droopy foreskins, there had been clean cocks, smelly cocks, dirty cocks and cocks that were smeared in some kind of ointment to combat a disgusting disease; Kitten took them all.

Yet despite the regular deluge of male sweat and mess – or perhaps because of it – she kept herself clean and pretty, spending hours on her makeup, her hair and her clothes. Where other whores and mollies aged and bagged and turned to gin or opium to keep themselves going and stave off the horror of their daily tasks, Kitten prided herself for the order of her room and the satisfaction of her clients.

A bell tinkled from the ante-room; the next visitors were getting impatient.

She bent down and pulled the chamber-pot out from under her dressing-stand, pulled up her dress and took her own cock out of her lace bloomers. She aimed it at the chamber pot and a thin stream of gold urine tinkled against the porcelain. When she had finished, she shook herself out, rearranged her dress, carried the chamber pot over to the window, unlatched it and threw the contents over the unconscious client that Schistad had left lying in the alley below. It brought him round with a roar and a groan, and he sat up with wild eyes, staring around.

“Piss off!” screamed Kitten out of the window. “Or you’ll be lucky if you ever wake up again!”

The terrified man heaved himself to his feet and went stumbling off. Kitten watched him go, green eyes slanted and narrowed. He wouldn’t be back again.

“Sailors are here, Kitty!” roared Chris up the stairs.

***

Even was crying – he hadn’t even noticed it – the steady drip-drip of tears onto his knees, staining the grey twill in dark splashes. Acar passed him a handkerchief and a glass of water, and he sipped for a while, dabbing at his eyes.

“We can stop for a while,” the doctor suggested. “If it’s too much, Even. Patients often need time to rest, to process.”

“I haven’t ever talked to anyone about this,” murmured Even faintly. “I’m frightened.”

He hid his face. Acar nodded sympathetically. “What are you frightened of?”

Even whispered. “The law. Prison.”

 _My father, my mother, the shame of everyone knowing –_ _God, the eternal, damnation –_

Acar refilled his glass. “The law is one thing, but human nature is another. The law has always been reluctant to accept certain parts of the human condition, though from your reading of the ancient texts we can see that inclinations like yours are universal, from the time of ancient societies and probably will be well into the future too.”

He paused to let that sink in before going on. “How did you find school otherwise – Nissen, wasn’t it?”

Even’s face went white. “I can’t talk about school.”

“Why not?”

There was a long pause, followed by a shuddering breath. “It hurts too much.”

Acar merely nodded. “Do you want to tell me about something else?”

“I’ll tell you about afterwards.”

*** 

Kitten was riding cock; three Russian military cadets had paid for a full hour and intended to get the full bang for their buck. Two of them lounged in the easy-chairs, drinking Chris’s watered-down wine and making crude comments about her bottom bouncing up and down as their companion heaved and gasped below her on the large four-poster bed.

As it happened, Kitten hadn’t needed to worry about her dress; the clients wanted it off as soon as they got through the door. Some clients liked her fully-clothed so they could preserve the mystique and the sexual ambiguity, others just wanted her naked so they could see her cock. These cadets wanted the best of both worlds; undressed from the waist down, so she was wearing nothing but her laced-up and boned white bodice and suspenders clipped onto white stockings, so her small dick slapped against the soldier’s brawny stomach as she rocked back and forth. She was good at riding men, balancing herself on her jewelled heels, gripping her ankles and throwing her head back, as the client inside her issued a steady stream of vicious insults and curses.

“Language,” she murmured, quickening her movements. She wasn’t worried about violence once she was in the molly-house – it was the insurance that she had by working for Schistad – one shout from her that the clients were not about to pay and he and his henchmen would burst through the door and beat the offender to a pulp. Otherwise her screams or the sounds of violence coming from her room were nothing to get concerned about; plenty of the customers got her to act out bondage or whipping fantasies; some men wanted her to top them while dressed as a girl, others spanked her til her bottom was raw before getting her to relieve them. Others were happy to be penetrated by her high-heels or the handle of her cane, or to grovel at her feet like dogs. Some liked her to act the part of a fine lady – _that’s quite a highclass accent you got there, where did you go to school?_ – or a shy virgin; she’d do either. She had performed the wildest of scenarios, but in general terms most of her clients were bread-and-butter fantasies, wanting to get off with a pretty molly, and these military cadets were about as vanilla as they got.

She felt the man start to approach his release without opening her eyes and she clenched and bore down as hard as she could until he was wiped out and trembling below her. Smiling in satisfaction, she slid off him and opened her thighs wide so his companions could see the open hole where their friend had been, laced with trickles of mess and her small cock standing above it.

“One down, two to go,” she murmured sweetly. “Who’s next?”

***

“What happened after school, then?” enquired Acar gently.

Even closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

After school, he’d tried. He really had.

His nerves were bad – he found himself either wildly excited or plunged into depression – the doctors recommended taking up a pastime or hobby so he immersed himself in painting. Like many well-to-do gentlemen with money and time on his hands, he took a lease on a small studio where he enjoyed creating the soft white-and-blue of a blurry nipple or the peachy-pink curve of a hip. Golden hair he could paint too; long and tumbling down a slender back like a Pre-Raphelite maiden, or capturing the bruised-purple lip of a captured Rubens nude.

He didn’t paint the white flanks of a Greek youth asleep on a river bank, or the long line of a slender back of a victorious athlete. He didn’t mix his red and black paint to create the dark shadows between men’s legs or the curve of their buttocks; he didn’t blur the yellows and oranges that would mould biceps or collar-bones or the grey-green tones of the barely-there row of muscles that rippled down masculine stomachs and thighs.

But he still thought about them every night.

He sold a few paintings; nothing in terms of money, but enough to earn him a minor reputation in the art world. The Bohemian group – currently the hottest painters in Oslo’s art scene – scorned him and his work; bohemian painting, like the Impressionists over in Paris – was all about naturalism and representing the scenes of the day, whereas Even tried to escape from it to a romantic, pre-modern past. He illustrated scenes from the ballet; _Swan Lake, The Nutcracker_ and _La Sylphide_ , all popular ballets of the time. He also received a couple of commissions. A few portraits of bun-faced daughters, a casket-painting of a dead son, and a Holy Communion illustration for a family Bible.

Then disaster struck.

A local benefactor wanted a choir of angels to be painted on the wall of a newly-built church. It was a well-paid commission and one that would make his name, so Even had to upscale immediately. He employed a couple of minor artists in the style of the Old Masters to flesh out the broad composition of the arrangement, while he himself hired a selection of models so he could paint their faces and figures from life.

But angels are notoriously androgynous; even in the most religious and stern of texts resembling pretty men or handsome women, and for the first time in a while, Even found himself facing a crowd of partially unclothed, beautiful creatures that by his hidden nature he was helplessly attracted to. Lips and tongues and tumbling hair, slender legs and pointed toes and graceful, giggling manners; partially unclothed and clutching at each other as if in the throes of being pulled up to Heaven. Even was aroused and distracted to the point of not being able to paint _at all_ , when one of the nude models sprawled reclining on the floor in a giant pair of pasteboard wings covered in swan’s feathers noticed Even _looking_ , and opened his legs a little wider for him.

His name was Mikael, and he was the perfect balance of girl and boy; soft dark hair wisping over his shoulders and a shy pretty face. Like the crumpled picture of Ganymede still shut secretly away in Even’s private chest of belongings, his build was small and slight, as delicate as a dancer when he moved.

Even couldn’t take his eyes off him.

He moaned and gasped in Even’s arms later that night when Even did the thing between his thighs, and turned his groin into a slippery mess of white. He was slender and pliable and a mixture of coarse and innocent in bed; he had modelled before and was used to the older Bohemian painters taking advantage of him roughly afterwards, so to have such a gentle, somewhat dreamy benefactor as Even was a novelty for him.

As a result the young painter’s model taught Even a wider catalogue of sexual interests, how to use your mouth for pleasure and how to penetrate with fingers and cock, so long hours were spent touching and tasting Mikael, taking him in his mouth and licking between his legs, and experimenting with how many different ways he could get his lover to come. However, whatever they might discover in bed, Even’s favourite form of foreplay was always painting him, whether as a Greek hero or a Roman soldier or merely unclothed and sleeping like Narcissus on the river bank, before his need overwhelmed him, he threw down his brush and took the boy to lie down with him.

Months and then nearly a couple of years passed this way; it was a time of sensuousness and sensuality that Even had never really known before, sex and sexuality merged with creativity and passion, producing many works of art – all bearing Mikael’s face – which hung in portrait and fine art galleries throughout the land. Mikael was not just his lover, he was his muse, he was the first thing that Even thought about in the morning, and the vision that he fell asleep to at night.

Out of that heady cocktail Even fell in love with a beautiful boy for the second time in his life.

“The second time?” asked Acar, with a puzzled frown. “What was the first?”

Even looked down.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

***

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said Kitten sweetly, pulling her robe around her as she opened the door, to be met with five drunk British sailors just off the boat, by the smell and shape of them. “How lovely to see you again.”

“’Ere she is! ‘Ere’s our Kitty!” They piled into the room bringing the smell of tobacco, rum, and months-old sweat with them. Kitten didn’t recognise them specifically, but her establishment was a go-to stop on the port-trail, much recommended for sailors after long, frustrating months at sea. So she smiled, declined the offer of a drink, and let them kiss her on the lips and paw her for a little while to warm the party up, sitting on each of their laps on turn while they told her far-fetched anecdotes about the various countries they’d visited. One passed out within minutes and lay insensible on the floor; another was so drunk that he was in no shape to perform, so he lay on the couch and sang sea shanties lustily in the background, while she knelt between the thighs of the third and sucked him dry while the fourth, unable to wait his turn, pushed up her petticoats and mounted her from behind.

“And ‘ere’s our Bill! Hey, Bill! Kitty, this one ain’t never put ‘is dick in anyone in ‘is life!” cried the least drunk of them as he pulled out, panting, and tucked himself away.

Kitten looked at the fifth member of the party cowering at the end of the bed; Bill was no more than sixteen if he were a day; a sickly, pale looking lad, eyes wide and frightened as he took in the bawdy escapades of his shipmates.

“She’ll look after ya, won’t ya, Kitty!” beamed the sailors. “She’ll show you what to do, Bill don’t you worry!”

“We’re treating ‘im!” promised another generously. “It’s ‘is birthday an’ all!”

Kitten adjusted her dress and fixed her hair from where the sailors had been pulling it, and moved forward, laying her hand gently on his knee.

The boy jumped in fear and she felt a momentary twinge in her heart at his frightened innocence; she knew, underneath all the tarnished coarseness, how he felt.

There had been a time, once, many years ago, when this whole world had been new and strange to her too.

She brushed _that_ thought off as quickly as it occurred. No sense thinking about the past; you had to move forward in this life if you were to have any hope of going anywhere.

“Come here, handsome,” she purred, perching herself on his knee and pressing her lips to his in a soft, sweet kiss. “Why don’t you let Kitty make it all better.”        

*** 

_**NEXT CHAPTER COMING UP!** _


	3. The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's bad times this chapter, as Even recalls the disaster that led to his breakdown, while "Kitten" falls into despair. 
> 
> (This is angsty, okay, but it gets better I promise!)

 

The grandfather clock chimed suddenly from the corner, its old, melodic tones signalling the beginning of evening. A wooden cuckoo shot out from two little doors in its crown, chirped six times, folded its wings and then just as abruptly disappeared.

Even started in surprise, he had been in Acar’s study for nearly three hours and dusk was creeping in. He felt deeply weary, as if he had been travelling for a long time, only to arrive in a strange and foreign land where he didn’t know the customs or language, and every face he saw was a stranger.

 _I’ve lost myself,_ he thought dully, before it was swiftly followed by the thought, _This is what I wanted. This is what I have to do._

“So you found a boy – the artist’s model – who reciprocated your feelings. What was the disaster?” asked Acar curiously.

Even buried his face in his hands.

He had moved Mikael into the small flat above his art studio upon pretext of taking on a permanent studio assistant to stretch canvases, clip horsehair for brushes, and mix paints, despite the fact that by now ready-mixed paints and fine brushes were readily available in the shops. Even pretended that he was adopting the style of the Old Masters for the commission, which involved exhaustively layering the church’s wood panels with wafer-thin applications of white gesso primer to let the light shine through the paint as if illuminated from beneath.

Mikael would actually do some mixing and some painting of a morning, as the commission would take up to two years to complete; but every afternoon he and Even would spend the late afternoon naked on an oil-stained divan usually used for life models, frantic and sweating until the light went down and Even would have to wearily dress and go back to the house for dinner.

For the first time it felt to Even as if he had found the answer; a hidden arrangement in plain sight, seen but not understood by society. His wife Eva, busy with their new baby, knew of the demands of the commission and the hiring of a new studio assistant, so she did not question when Even went to spend long hours there. It was moreover widely held in the family that painting was good for Even’s nerves and that he should be allowed to spend as much time with his art as he desired.

But when Even started sleeping whole nights in the studio, often not coming back to his wife for days, and then weeks on end, his family worried that he was starting to lose his reason and intervened. His father gave him a stern talking to on the necessity of keeping one’s wife _happy_ , and Eva’s cousin even broke into the studio once, certain that Even was keeping a woman there. Only Mikael’s quick reactions averted total disaster (luckily they had kept their clothes on that day). Their secret was saved, temporarily, but the constant watchfulness and pressure told on Even and made him irritable and paranoid, and in return Mikael became resentful and aggressive.

They argued and made up; they slapped each other and ended up making passionate love on the floor, they wrote each other letters and burned them, they spoke about eloping together, while each made plans to run away alone. As the summer turned into autumn, the fights and the pressure became more and more intense until it was a powder keg of fear, sex and tension waiting to explode.

The situation was finally settled when Even arrived at the studio one day after a fiery argument with Mikael, to discover that the boy had absconded with fifty kroner in cash, a box of heirloom jewellery and a few good canvases and paints. Running around the trashed and ransacked studio at first Even called out Mikael’s name hysterically, fearing that a burglar had attacked him, until he realised the truth of the situation and sank to his knees in horror.

His boy – his love – had turned out to be a common street thief with the face of an angel.

Even took a knife to all the portraits in the studio and did not stop until all of them had been slashed beyond recognition.

For a while he had lain in his bed so plunged into despair that his family could neither get him to drink nor eat. With no one to talk to about his hidden agony, he had been like a ghost – standing at his window, staring out at the flocks of wild swans flapping against the red streaks of sunset – even uninterested in holding a brush or palette in his hand. He had become skeletal and pale, withdrawn and twitchy, until one day, weak with lack of food he had fainted, fallen down the stairs and broken three bones in his foot.

That was the first time that he had spent time in hospital and met Doctor Dahl.

***

Kitten was being spit-roasted by two cheerful Samoan deck-hands; they spoke no Norwegian but luckily her trade was one that didn’t demand a lot of nuanced language. It was evident after a while, however, that they were rather more interested in each other than her, and she became uncomfortably squashed between their grinding bodies as they pulled at each other’s necks and kissed while they ground out their release into her from each end. Once they had finished, they both shook her hand warmly and left her a healthy tip which Kitten rapidly pocketed. Most tips were meant to be turned over to Chris, but Kitten paid the bare minimum and kept most of it for herself.

She generally took half-an-hour between clients to clean herself up and rearrange the room, opening the windows and tossing a handful of sandalwood-powder into the grate to sweeten the air. One of her regulars was a merchant in the spice trade so Kitten’s apartment always smelled rich with his frequent presents; frankincense brushed into the dingy carpet, attar-of-rose sprinkled on her sheets and Seville orange in her linen drawer. She washed between her legs in the small tin bath with lavender-scented soap, re-powdered her face and dabbed eau-de-cologne behind her ears.

When she was done, she pulled back the mattress and peered inside at the small heap of wallets and money that she kept under the bed. Altogether she had about fifty kroner, including the recent addition from Chris’s own pocket. But the money that she kept there was almost useless; she could open no bank account because she had no husband to open it for her, and no documents to her name. Respectable women did not carry around large amounts of coins and notes, otherwise everyone would know what she _was_.

And yet, in the eyes of the law, moreover, she did not – _could not_ – even exist.

 ***

“Tell me about what happened after the hospital,” said Acar, turning a fresh page, and Even’s nails dug into his palms, leaving a painful little web of indented marks alongside all the others.

After he had come out of hospital and his foot was mended, he had little interest in painting, and instead taken to rambling on long walks over the Heath in all weathers – seemingly unconscious of the battering rain or the blistering sun. Eva was told by Doctor Dahl that exercise was important, and for a while she dutifully accompanied him on his excursions, trotting doggedly after him with the nanny and the baby as he loped up hills and along fjiords, before Even’s disinterest in their company became so pronounced that they finally gave up and left him to it. For the next year or so he ranged through different parts of the country on short missions, and from the beautiful views he encountered he became interested in the art of photography.

He bought a small chromium-plate camera, tripod and dark photographer’s hood, and tried his hand at rendering in black-and-white the beautiful views that he passed or portraits of the people that he met. Back home he turned one room of the house into a dark-room with a deep red bulb and spent his nights developing pictures and pegging them up to dry on lines like so many rows of washing. When the development was complete he would spend long hours contemplating them; and if he spent longer gazing at the portraits of the pretty youths that he had passed than the views over the Downs or the castles or the beaches, then there was no one around to see.

“And then?” prompted Acar, as Even ground to a halt.

“But – ” whispered Even, hardly daring. “I saw him.”

“Saw who?” asked Acar curiously.

Even shook his head, pressing his fingers into his mouth, as if he was frightened to let the words come out.

“The boy – the _boy who died_ …”

 ***

“Oh God,” moaned Chris as he floundered on top of her, breeches pulled down over his hips and belly flopping against hers. “Give it to me now, Kitty, I can’t wait another second.”

Chris liked to be the first man that took her in a day and the last man inside her of a night; it reminded him that Kitten was his property and knowing that other men had had constant and often brutal carnal knowledge of her in the intervening hours just served to accentuate his pleasure. She tensed her hips and tightened her ass as much as she could when she took him in; he liked to feel as if he was stretching her, so she quivered like a squirrel and gasped as if he was just _too much_.

“Am I the biggest?” groaned Chris, jaw slack and wet against her cheek as he bottomed out. “Am I the biggest you’ve ever had?!”

Kitten bit back a smirk of derision, throwing her head back and biting her lip theatrically. Schistad had _no_ idea about the size of some of her clients who visited her.

“The very biggest,” she moaned as Schistad began to pump messily. “Oh God, Chris, you’re so huge, you’re so _enormous_ –”

***

“I think we should stop there for today,” said Acar quickly, seeing that Even was on the verge of tears again. “You’ve done very well for a first session, and I would like to see you again to go over some more background.”

“What do you think?” Even stared at him, biting his knuckles. “What’s your prognosis, Doctor?”

“From what you have told me,” said Acar consideringly, “your situation is an interesting one. You find women attractive, but you cannot stop yourself from finding men attractive also, even though you have regular access to female company, should you wish it.”

Even nodded, sipping at his gone-cold tea. He was getting used to Acar’s ease of manner, though he still could not look at him fully without being reminded of Mikael. Though it had been a couple of years past, the force of the loss still hit him anew.

“What you have told me about finding arousal of beautiful youths in books and paintings or crushes on one’s peers and schoolfriends is very common in young people; more common than most would like to believe,” said Acar kindly. “Many people pass beyond this stage in their lives, or continue to find both men and women attractive, but can manage to maintain a satisfying relationship with the opposite sex, despite their other inclinations. You – however – cannot.”

“That’s right,” whispered Even, unable to drag his gaze away from his patent-leather boots. “Because – ”

“Yes?” asked Acar interestedly.

“Because – sex isn’t _enough_. I need love – I need to feel in love, and _be_ in love. If I don’t have _love_ –” Even shrugs helplessly. “Whether it’s with a man or a woman, I’m not _myself._ ”

Acar nodded. “Sometimes the adolescent fixates on a beautiful thing and identifies with it; the consuming feeling of love is just such an identification. You are a good-looking young man,” – Even flushed – “and it is natural that you should identify with other good-looking young men. But when the nature fixates only on that which is close to it, and does not seek to find attraction in what contrasts it, it is called arrested development, and often homosexual inclinations can be found in those who have not grown to find the opposite sex attractive. Whether such persons can, or will, grow to find the opposite sex solely attractive, is another matter. And that is why you are here today.”

 “But will you change me?” Even gazed at him, breathless. “Can you cure me?”

“I do not _change_ people; I help them to change themselves. I help people –” Acar paused – “to live their lives according to what society can expect of them. I do not think that it is for me to pull the very essence out of a man, emotionally castrate him or warp his essential nature. There are asylums for that, and they are not pleasant places, more akin to torture cells than therapy. But I am not here to play God. I am here to see if a person can find their way to be satisfied with the other sex, and the other sex alone, but – I have to warn you – I am not always successful.”

Even’s heart went cold. “What about the people that – you’re not successful with?”

Acar thought. “Some go abroad. Not all countries have laws as draconian as ours for the love that dare not speak its name. In Poland, for instance, or Chile – or some countries in the Africas like Tangiers – there are no actual laws that forbid men wanting to lie together. In larger cities, in say, Paris – there are many communities with – understandings similar to yours where you might seek – _like-minded_ individuals.”

“Then – if we fail,” – Even’s voice choked – “I lose everything? Leave my home? I must be banished?”

The doctor shook his head reassuringly. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here, Mr. Naesheim. We have not yet established whether or not you are able to be satisfied with a relationship with your wife and no one else.”

Even was trembling all over. “But – if you can’t cure me, what does it mean? That I’m stuck as a criminal? Stuck to be _damned_?”

Acar’s face looked sad as he took in Even’s evident distress. “This is a question we cannot answer. Damnation is a word that humans use but cannot understand. God does not play dice, and as such we must trust that there is a place in a wider plan that all people have a part in.”

***

Kitten raised herself on her elbow and looked down at Schistad sleeping beside her. He had gone to seed, she noticed; the youth and beauty which had so much attracted her five years ago turned to fat and sloth, the beginnings of a pot-belly and the lines of drink etched heavily upon his countenance.

“Chris,” she murmured, poking him. “Chris, do you still love me?”

“Eh?” groaned Chris, opening a sleepy eye. “Of course I still love you, Kitty-cat.”

Kitten bit her lip. “When we first met – you said that we would do this for a year. Two at the most. But it’s been _three years_ already, Chris, I can’t keep doing this for much longer, I won’t have my figure, I won’t have my teeth – I need to get out while we can still – do all the things we planned to do. At the beginning. Remember?”

“Ah, come on Kitty,” moaned Chris, throwing an arm around her and snuggling close. “You know how expensive this place is to keep up.  There’s overheads and extras and they keep raising the rent, not to mention all that stuff you buy to keep yourself looking good, Kitten. You’ll just have to suck more cock, I’m afraid honey, there’s no way round this. We need at least six hundred kroner to buy two tickets to America.”

Kitten gazed at him in raw, helpless fury. Schistad would drink the money away as fast as she could earn it. She ran through a few calculations in her head; even an extra twenty men per day, even if they raised the cost again, would only bring in a few more kroner per week, and Chris and his friends were able to drink their body weights in liquor on a good day.

“Chris,” she breathed, hardly daring, “Are you still going to marry me?”

The pimp pressed a smacking, sour-smelling kiss to her temple. “We’re already married, sweetheart. As good as. I gave you a ring, didn’t I?”

Kitten bore a cheap gold band on her finger and Chris introduced her to his friends as _my wife_ but it wasn’t enough. “No, I mean a _proper_ marriage, Chris. With papers and everything. I don’t have documents, I don’t have a birth certificate that shows that I’m Isabella Schistad. If the police pick me up when I’m out, I don’t have _anything_ – no bank account, no protection, _nothing_.”

“They’re not going to pick you up if you don’t go out,” said Chris reasonably. “And lots of your clients are police officers anyway, they aren’t going to shit where they eat.” He rolled over and farted in her direction, long and pleasurably.

“Now quit worrying your pretty little head, Kitten, and let me sleep.”

***

Even left Acar’s surgery with a surprisingly light heart, as if the weight of years had suddenly been lifted from him. He went home with renewed resolve and made love to Eva immediately, as forcefully and enthusiastically as he could. She was surprised and a little flattered, though she noted that he kept his eyes closed throughout and his face turned to the side as if he was thinking of something else entirely.

But afterwards he didn’t make an excuse to go to his study as usual, but instead fell asleep beside her, looking tired and worn out. She made a private resolve that she would get him to eat more, covered him with the comforter and fell asleep, feeling happy herself.

Maybe this Doctor Acar could be the cure for her husband’s melancholy that they had all been waiting for.

***

Kitten lay, staring into the darkness, her mind turning over and over while Schistad snored comfortably by her side.

When she had first met Chris – five years ago, _after_ – no, _when_ she first came into being, venturing out sad and lonely in her new green dress and veil, she had seen him sauntering through the main shopping street at Sentrum and been instantly swept away by him. He had raised his hat and complimented her, taken her dancing at the music-hall and offered her his arm when they walked down the cobblestones. She laughed when he whistled her a merry tune, and took her boating in the Slottsparken with the flocks of swans bobbing beside them in the water. He had been the first man who danced attendance on her in such a fashion, and when she finally let him peep beneath her veil, she was overwhelmed that he still leaned in to kiss her; he wanted her fully and sexually, without revulsion or guilt or fear or shame.

For the first time she could walk out in public as long as she wore her veil, accepted and made visible by the handsome man beside her; he tickled her and made her laugh, he ate the food she cooked for him and made love to her in a lusty, vigorous fashion that left her breathless and gasping for more.

But that protection came at a price, and the price was her freedom.

And little by little the man she had loved had ebbed away, made lazy and stupid by drink, and ungrateful at all the efforts she was making to keep them both, keep their dreams alive. And now all they had was the dingy hovel in Tjernenspasse, a box of makeup and a pile of wallets underneath the rickety bed.

She gazed at herself in the mirror; she didn’t usually do this without her make up on. Make up made everything better; it lengthened her eyelashes, shaded her eyebrows and smoothed the line of her jaw to look more feminine. Creams softened her skin and pretty jewellery around her neck and sparkles hanging from her ears would brighten her complexion. It was an expensive endeavour, and Chris had one thing right; a lot of their income was spent on making Kitten look as beautiful as she knew she could be.

Without the makeup, her face was still the face of a boy; and a sad, lonely boy it looked tonight in the dingy mirror. She hated it, but she made herself _look_ , occasionally, just to keep her resolve up. There were dark rings under her long-lashed green eyes, and at this time of night a shadow would creep along her jaw that she needed to shave away before daylight.

She counted the money, together with the wallets she had lifted from the Samoans before bidding them sweetly goodbye. It came to fifty five kroner, with a few cheap pieces of jewellery which might, if she were lucky, bring the figure up by another twenty. 

_It costs six hundred kroner for two tickets to America._

Chris hadn’t been her only option over the years. Plenty of clients – usually older and married – had professed undying love to her and promised to spirit her away to a better life; the Turkish emir with a fleet of vessels that criss-crossed the sparkling seas of the East. The Russian general who boasted of owning lands beyond the Volga where she would have her own house, carriage and a fleet of white-maned ponies. The Persian sheikh who recited poetry to her in Arabic and who would speak stirringly of the bright gardens girdled with walls and towers of his own land, orchards of incense-bearing trees and handmaidens without number to wait on her every desire.

Kitten had clung to them, these scraps of hopes and wishes, desperately needing something – _anything_ – to believe in.

But promises made in the sweaty heat of the bed evaporated in the cold light of dawn; the ships would sail to another port, the men would in time travel back to their own homes or their own lands and Kitten would be left with nothing but a broken heart and the noise of Schistad snoring drunkenly beside her.

Sometimes it felt as if, five years on, she hadn’t moved an inch during that time; instead she was always being swept downstream, the bright future she’d hoped for vanishing over the horizon in front of her no matter how hard she paddled to stay afloat.

She sat down at the rickety little casket-window and sobbed silently, cradling her head on her arms, and only the moon, gazing down from the cloud-speckled heavens on the slumbering city of Christiania, saw the full agony of her despair.

**NEXT CHAPTER COMING UP!**


	4. Swan Lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitten goes to the ballet and meets someone unexpected, while Even uncovers a trauma from his past ...
> 
> (I lied about the angst nearly being over!)

 

On Kitten’s day off – usually Mondays, as the clients spent most of their money over the weekend – she would steal out to the better-off parts of town and visit the ballet. It was her private passion; she loved watching the ballerinas swim and float across the stage, and for an hour or so she would forget about everything else save the stories of love, passion and death that consumed her. _Swan Lake_ , _Sleeping Beauty, La Sylphide, Cindarella_ – she would sit up in the gods with the cheap seats, her hands propping up her chin, her thoughts somewhere else entirely. Kitten’s love of ballet was her best-kept secret, and not even Chris knew where she went on her days off.

But today, as she opened the front door, already dressed up in her hat and veil, there was a burst of laughter from the pimp’s sitting-room, and Chris reeled out, eyes dazed from drink.

“Hey hey Kitty-cat! Where are you slinking off to?”

He grabbed her bottom playfully, and tried to drag her inside. Kitten shook him off, indignantly.

“Stop that, Chris! It’s my day off!”

“Ah, c’mon!” Chris shook his head frantically. “I’ve three old friends in town for the day, and I’ve promised them you’ll show them a good time, Kitty-cat.” He leaned in, licking sensuously at her neck. “One of them’s never tried boy-pussy before, but I’ve promised him he’ll love it. At least, he’s going to love _yours_.”

***

“How was your week?” asked Acar as he greeted Even at the door with a handshake.

Even felt the warmth of Acar’s smooth skin in his palm; he hated how much he enjoyed touching him, and he took his hand away as quickly as he could.

“Well enough. My wife and I went to the opera.”

Acar smiled, a charming flash of teeth that Even tried hard not to notice. “What did you see?”

“Some awful love story thing. Eva wanted to see it. Then we went to the National Gallery, dined at a hotel, and on Sunday after church we took our son for a walk in the park.”

“Good. _Good_!” Acar beamed, and Even felt a strange prick of resentment at the doctor’s unbridled enthusiasm for such mundane achievements. “Did you have sexual congress with your wife since our last session?”

Even flinched; he was still unused to such direct questions from the doctor, as if Acar were chiselling open a window into his sex life to shine a searchlight into. “Yes; twice.”

“Twice? Excellent. Both initiated by you?”

Even sighed involuntarily. “Well – the first time I started it. And then the other, she started it. She was – keen.” He looked down, biting his lip.

Acar’s silver pencil hovered. “Did you have homosexual contact during this time?”

Even felt slightly indignant and defensive, as if Acar was pushing on a sore muscle. “ _No_.”

“Did you pleasure yourself? Without your wife present, I mean?”

“Uhhh - yes.”

“How many times?” murmured Acar disinterestedly, scribbling.

“Seven.”

“That’s - once a day?”

“…Yes.”

“What did you think about during those sessions?”

Even’s face flamed beetroot red; he gazed down at his boots, willing his flush away, playing for time. “I – don’t understand.”

Acar stroked his neat little goatee. “Did you fantasise about men or women during those sessions of self-pleasure?”

Even swallowed with an effort, trying not to look at the doctor’s profile too closely or give anything away. He had made himself come repeatedly over the memory of Acar’s smile and the graceful movement of his hands, and enjoyed a rose-coloured fantasy of a quite alternative ending to their session the week before.

“Um. A man. _Men_.”

Acar made some notes on his pad. “Thank you. Now I’m going to recommend that you abstain from self-pleasure for a while.”

Even gazed at him thunderstruck, jolted rudely out of his embarrassment. “ _What_? For – for how long?”

The doctor shrugged. “We’ll say for the next month as a trial period. Allow yourself sexual relief only when your wife is with you.”

“What about – ” Even made a helpless gesture. “In my dreams?”

Acar shrugged expressively. “We can’t control our dreams to that extent, no matter what Freud might wish. But I recommend frequent sexual union with your wife, and the absence of masturbation is designed to make sex with her easier; don’t allow yourself to go more than a day or so without one of you initiating the opportunity.”

Even looked at the floor. “And what – what if I think about men during – when I’m with my wife?”

“There’s no crime in _thinking_ , Mr. Naesheim,” said Acar softly. “That’s how our society works. As long as you are having sex with the right people, nobody cares if you’re thinking about the wrong ones.”

***

Kitten slid into her seat as quietly as she could; it was late when she arrived and the ballet had already started. Chris and his fat, sweating friends had wasted a large part of her valuable free time, and it had taken all her arts to coax messy orgasms out of three drunk cocks already wilting with brewers-droop. By the time the last of them had managed to squeeze a few drops into her it was already five-thirty, and she had almost no time to wash properly and put on new clothes.

As usual when she went out in public, today a trim figure in a pink dress covered with a fluffy coat, she wore a veil that obscured her face; as long as people didn’t stare too closely, she knew she could _pass_ , and many a man doffed his cap or opened a door for her with a low bow. 

Today the ballet was _Swan Lake_ ; the story of Prince Siegfried who falls in love with a beautiful girl who is enchanted by a sorcerer to be imprisoned in the body of a swan. She can only assume human form by dancing at night by a lake made of her mother’s tears. Kitten watched enraptured, as the Prince sought his lost love, and at the point where he cannot find her and instead dallies with the human girl Odile instead, Kitten burst into tears, dabbing frantically at her face with her handkerchief.

“You swore to love her always,” she murmured, weeping, as if speaking to someone else entirely. “You swore it on your life.”

When the girl cannot bear being a swan any more, she chooses to die, and rather than be left alone, the Prince leaps into the lake with her. Kitten wasn’t sure how she felt about that; a lot of the time, she felt, she would rather remain a swan than return to the messy world of human love. Sometimes enchantment was the only way you could get through this life, wasn’t it?

As she left, she pulled down her veil so that nobody could see the tears rolling down her cheeks.

***

“I’m still curious,” said Acar gently, “as to why you fixate so much on males rather than females as a love-object, although you can achieve sexual satisfaction with both sexes. It almost feels as if love is something that you see as prized in men, and do not value in women.”

Even sipped at his tea; he was getting used to talking about the most private stuff with Acar, although he frequently had to keep pushing away the attendant thoughts that came with it - the involuntary arousal that he felt when Acar mentioned sexual parts or acts, the desire to smile back, flirt, lean over, touch his knee – 

 _Concentrate_ , he told himself sternly. _You’re here to get better; you can’t moon over every attractive man you meet._

“It’s not that I don’t _prize_ women, it’s just –” he caught himself trying not to notice the fresh scent of the doctor’s cologne or the entrancing hollow of his throat underneath his collar. “I can’t – sorry it just _is_ , I can’t explain.”

Acar looked sympathetic. “Sometimes, early experiences influence our sexual life; they form a template by which we find later experiences or people sexually arousing.” He flicked through his notepad. “You spoke of seeing pictures of beautiful youths in books, and of the Ganymede image that you enjoyed during your first masturbation sessions…”

“I used pictures of girls, too,” said Even defensively. “All the boys at school used to pass them round. So I don’t really know why the boy in the book stayed with me so much.”

Acar thought for a while, making small, unintelligible notes on his pad.

“Who was the first person you were in love with, Mr. Naesheim?”

Even swallowed, his pulse racing. He knew that they would come to this eventually, and had prepared for it, but although his mind was clear, his body betrayed him. His knees trembled and tears started to his eyes, and he felt panicked, as panicked as a deer at bay against the hounds, seeing its own imminent death in their eyes.

“I – I – can’t remember,” he stammered.

“Last time,” said Acar gently, sensing Even’s pain, “you touched upon school, but you said it was too – too painful, as I recall.”

Even bit his lip, willing the tears not to come. _Let it go, let it go_ , he thought to himself desperately, _it’s all in the past, just talk about it, it’s only words, who cares -_

Acar leaned closer and Even turned away, dabbing at his eyes.

“Was there some trauma during your school years – something that might have started this all in motion?”

“No! No!!!!”

Even suddenly cried out sharply, his eyes wide and staring at nothing. Acar leaned forward but Even was in another world, the world of fear and pain and all the chaos he had kept pushed mercilessly down so long.  The churning pain in his heart leaked out and down his cheeks, until he was conscious of nothing but Acar’s hand on his shoulder and the handkerchief held out to comfort him.

“Tell me,” says Acar, voice low in Even’s ear. “Tell me what happened at school, Even.”

***

The first days of winter had set in, a raw late November had crept up on the city of Christiania unawares, deadening everything in a cold, grey light. There was ice at the docks and the ponds in the parks, the hobbled swans slipped and slithered around the frozen surface, fruitlessly chipping at it in search of worms or a drink of water. Kitten wandered past the swans unseeingly, her coat drawn tight around her, her veil down over her face. Everything seemed dead and hopeless; another painful year was limping to a close with her still trapped in the molly-house, tired and used and worn by a succession of partying men during the Christmas celebrations.

“Next year,” she murmured to herself, her own little mantra that she would repeat over and over to herself when her courage failed her. “ _Next year_.”

She crossed the small wooden bridge and leaned her elbows on it dully. Six _hundred kroner – for two tickets to America._ And one ticket would cost three hundred, and maybe more, when you added up the costs of passage to the big international ports of Liverpool or Gothenberg, as no ship sailed directly from Christiania to the New World. She could save that – she _knew_ she could – if she worked every hour without Chris drinking it away –

Could she go alone? Respectable women had to have a man with them to travel long distances, especially abroad. But she had no papers, no birth certificate, nothing to prove who she was – would a ring on her finger and a tale about a husband killed in a factory accident appease a casual passport official?

But yet again, if she were caught – then there would be the police, the prison, and the rough, lascivious convicts that she would have to share a cell with – at least in the molly-house she had some control over who took her, and how; whereas in gaol she would have no protection against becoming the bitch of the entire prison. It was a huge gamble – no gamble that she hadn’t taken before, to be sure, but she needed this to work _out,_ she needed to know that there was _somewhere_ that she could, one day, be _safe_ –

She stared down at the boat-house, a small knocked-up shanty next to the tethered row-boats. A few years ago Chris had taken her for picnics here, rowed out with her on the blue ponds and clowned around, dripping water over her playfully with the swinging oars. Now the water was thick with ice and the white, dead sky hung over all leaching the colour and life out of everything; making her feel like a wax doll, a stick dressed in wisps of prettily-coloured cloth, as unreal as a gaudily-painted Christmas decoration hung on a tree.

 _Snap!_ The chilled wood below her cracked and shifted suddenly in the freeze; she turned quickly to steady herself but her shoe struck a deadly piece of ice and in a moment she was falling backwards, tipping over the fracturing rail, scrabbling wildly at it to steady herself. The bridge tilted over her head, river and sky changed places, and she plunged down, hitting the thin frozen surface of the lake with a crash, hard enough to crack through it and submerge herself in the icy water.

***

“Say it,” Acar’s voice was the only thing that Even could hear in his panic. “This is the source of all your demons, Even. Let them out. Tell me.”

***

“Arrgh!” The scream was torn from Kitten’s lungs more from the shock of the cold than the fear of her fall. She floundered, a wet mess in her soggy, enveloping dress and coat, struggling against the chill of the lake that quickly found its way through all her clothes and into her bones. It wasn’t deep – she was an able enough swimmer – but the cold sapped her strength and her energy, made her shocked and confused so that even when she struggled to within clutching distance of the edge she was too tired and drained to pull herself out.

“Wait! Wait Miss!” There was a voice shouting close behind her but Kitten shrugged it off, grasping desperately at the frozen fronds of grass just out of reach. Her vision was grey and blurred, her heart beating desperately in her chest that could not manage to rouse her body to save itself.

“Wait! Here!” There was a boat, just above her, a small flat-bottomed punt that cracked its way through the thin ice towards her. A hand was pulling at her shoulder but she was so panicked that she pushed it away blindly.

“Take my hand, Miss!” When she still resisted, a brawny arm wound its way around her waist and pulled hard; Kitten felt herself being pulled up bodily through the shards of ice and landed in the bottom of the boat like a flapping fish. Her bonnet and veil fell off and her hair tumbled around her ears, and instinctively she put her sodden gloved hands over her face to shield herself from recognition.

“It’s all right, Miss!” The voice was a rough but kindly one, a country accent from Oslo-borough beyond the city walls of Christiania. “Put this around you, Miss, you’ll catch your death, all wet like that …”

Kitten cowered in the bottom of the boat, hardly daring to look up, as a coarse horse-hair blanket was dumped around her shoulders. The boat rocked as the oarsman skilfully turned the punt around, and the swinging motion made Kitten lose the little composure she had, as she collapsed unconscious, face-down in an icy puddle.

***

_Even sees him before he sees him; a small sprightly figure in an oversize tunic, as if he’s wearing a uniform that should more rightly belong to his older brother. It’s the first day of the spring term at Nissen, and it feels as if his world has come to an abrupt standstill as a group of new boys – scholarship kids by the look of their second-hand uniforms – walk past him unheedingly._

_Scholarship children are not a common sight at Nissen, but the rich benefactors of the area have provided education for the most intelligent of the poor from the slums and the orphanages – though in every way of speech, manner and dress the poor scholars are distinguished from their richer fellow pupils._

_The last one, trailing behind, looking as much an outsider as Even feels – is so close he can almost touch him, and at the last second he raises his gaze, which has been studiously trained on the floor, and looks Even full in the face._

_For a moment Even is startled by a strange recognition – it’s as if the sleeping Ganymede in his crumpled painting has suddenly yawned, stretched, opened his eyes and gazed at him. He has fair curly hair, long on top and short at the sides as is the Christiania fashion that year, and large green eyes that make Even feel as if he is on the brink of a precipice, as if he knows – knows the long, lonely, nightly sessions spent over his picture, or the ache in Even’s heart that nothing seems able to fill._

_It’s only a glance – a quick look, less than a second – before the new boy is gone, walking into the Hall behind his schoolfellows, and Even is left with scarlet cheeks and a bumping heart, leaning next to the steps, a useless sketchpad dangling from one hand._

_He sees me, thinks Even furiously. He really – sees me._

_***_

“This was the first time?” asked Acar gently. “That you fell in love?”

Even stared into the flames, the curling yellow and orange that seemed to shed little heat into the chill of the doctor’s study.

“Yes,” he breathed.

***

The smoke of a hastily-lit, slightly wet fire filled the kitchen of the boathouse. Kitten, wrapped in another stiff coarse blanket, hunched over the grate trying to dry her hair from the frozen chunks of pondweed in it, and to shelter her face from the boatman as he paced easily to and fro, filling a large iron kettle and boiling it on the stove.

The man who had saved her put a steaming mug of tea down next to her with a clunk. “Drink this. It’ll warm you up inside as well. The cold can be deadly if you’re not careful.”

Kitten nodded, guiltily, and took a few sips. The man was right – it did warm her up, and the toasty, homely smell of the pine logs crept into her nostrils and made her feel a little bit alive again.

“You can’t keep those wet things on,” continued the man, matter-of-factly. “If you take them off, I’ll put them to dry over the fire.”

Kitten flinched, still looking away from him.

“Don’t worry, I won’t look,” said the boatman unconcernedly, turning away and rummaging in a drawer. “Ladies deserve their privacy. Anyway, I’ve got five sisters; won’t be anything I haven’t seen before.”

Despite herself, Kitten smiled. From what she could see out of the corner of her eye, the boatman was slightly taller than her, broad shouldered and curly-haired, one of the country boys come to find work in the big city. He clumped into the small closet that was secreted around the corner, and started to rummage around, paying her no more mind. She hesitated, then with sudden decision pulled off her sodden coat and dress and hung them over a chair, but her chilled fingers refused to unlace her bodice. The tight wet laces clung to her like a web, and she was starting to shiver uncontrollably.

“My hands won’t work,” she whispered finally. “I’m too cold.”

The boatman stopped his tasks and glanced over. “What’s the matter, Miss?”

Kitten bit her lip, putting her hands to brace herself on the mantlepiece. “Could you – please untie me?”

There was a brief, charged pause, and then, “Well, my Monday is certainly looking up,” said the boatman heartily, and proceeded to unlace her corset briskly, thick fingers tugging at the row of tightly-binding straps down her back. “My sisters put me in one of these once for a bit of a giggle. Ever since, I’ve had a lot of respect for anyone who manages to wear something like this without passing out.”

Kitten stood, holding tight onto the mantlepiece as the bodice loosened around her. It was odd for her to be undressed by a man who hadn’t come to fuck her, and instead whose whole attitude was a kindly solicitousness and supreme unconcern. She found it interesting, and strangely attractive, as far from Chris’s drunken fumblings as it was possible to be. With a sudden spurt of daring, she let go the garment and let it slip over her hips onto the floor.

She wished that she had a girl’s body, that she had the breasts that he had been expecting, instead of a thin, unmistakeable boy’s body, still partially clad in wet bloomers, standing in front of him. There was another moment of silence, then, nervously, she turned her face to look him full in the eyes.

***

_“You don’t know how to skate?” The boy is grinning at him teasingly, the polished iron blades of the ice skates skimming idly to and fro on the frozen lake. “Whatever do you do in your free time?”_

_Even doesn’t know how to skate; his parents have never troubled to teach him, and the few boys he knew at school prefer their own loutish company to a skinny, nerdish youth more interested in reading novels and painting. He’s not skilled at sports, his lanky body has little grace or control, and although he can run fast, anything that demands balance and quick responses is not likely to be his strong suit._

_He opens his mouth to protest. “But I’m not able – I’ll fall.”_

_The boy raises an uncompromising eyebrow._

_“You’ll never know until you try.”_

_This boy – this new boy – Even can’t take his eyes off him. He’s been watching him all afternoon, pretending to sketch the long flat lake and the snow-encrusted trees on the far side, but the group of skaters has more and more commanded his interest, especially the new boy, tracing graceful figure-of-eights and long sure swoops over the ice like a swallow._

_Even takes a step onto the ice, gingerly wobbling on his skates, and immediately slips and falls flat with a crunching, ungainly thud._

_The boy breaks into peals of joyous laughter at Even’s predicament, swooping backwards in a smooth movement to perform a few passes on the ice. He looks as delicate as a swan, poised and confident as a ballet-dancer, and watching him, Even can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed._

_“Take my hand.” The boy skims up to him, skates spread, holding out a slim wrist to Even as he struggles to get to his feet._

_“Don’t look down. You have to keep looking forwards. The trick is, even if you think you’re going to fall, just keep going.”_

_There’s a slight scrape as the boy pushes off backwards, Even shuffles forwards clumsily, and the next moment they’re breaking into a smooth glide, skimming over the ice as easily as a bird. Even grips his wrist gingerly, but as they pick up speed, it feels as if they’re flying, almost as if they’re part of the flock of swans flapping in all directions over the lake in front of them._

_“What’s your name?” asks Even, breathlessly as they reach the other side._

_The boy smiles, pushing a flopping curl out of his eyes with the back of his hand._

_“Isak.”_

***

The boatman looked as if he’d been struck. He cleared his throat, trying to regain some semblance of his earlier ease of manner.

“Sorry,” breathed Kitten, not knowing what or who she was apologising for.

The man shook himself out of his trance. “Well, don’t stop there. The rest of you is still as wet as a pound of fish.”

Kitten blushed. “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

“Put these on.” A pair of workman’s trousers, a thick knitted jumper and cheesecloth shirt were flung in front of her. Kitten recoiled.

“I can’t – I don’t wear those.”

“Why not? They’re only clothes. Like any others.” The boatman shrugged. “You can’t go running around the park in nothing but your birthday suit.”

Sighing, and not without a lip pinched in slight disgust, Kitten buttoned the shirt up, pulled the sweater over her head and fumbled with the trousers. Her hair was still wet, but she piled it up untidily on top of her head, and sat with her knees drawn up protectively in front of her on the shabby old couch next to the fire. When she was ready the boatman came back bearing a sharp knife; Kitten flinched involuntarily but the man just reached behind her into the dresser, pulled out a loaf of bread and began to hack at it.

“You’re – you’re a boy?” The question came out simply but not unkindly. Kitten bit her lip and hugged her knees.

“No. Yes.” she said, haltingly, pulling at the coarse wool of the jumper around her neck, clothes that she hadn’t worn for years. They clung to her uncomfortably in places that she had almost forgotten.

“Not any more. Well, sometimes.”

The boatman worked this out in silence for a while, slicing bread and shaving off slices of cheese to make her a sandwich. When he had finished, he pushed the plate at her and went to stoke the fire.

“What’s your name?” he asked, over his shoulder, his face reddened in the glow of the settling coals.

“Isabella,” Kitten answered immediately. She had already decided that there was _no way_ that she was going to let him know about Chris’s name for her, nor the shameful place that she had to work.

“Nice to meet you, Isabella.” The man’s face broke into his former, cheerful smile. “You look like you could use a friend. I’m Jonas.”

*** 

_**NEXT CHAPTER COMING UP!** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pipervika boroug, Sentrum, where prostitutes sold their services in Christiania  
> https://theoslobook.no/2016/09/03/oslo-city-hall/


	5. The Birth of Venus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Probably peak angst in this chapter, as Even faces his deepest trauma and Kitten takes a bold gamble with Jonas ...
> 
> (hang on in there, happier times are coming!)

_Oh Holy Night! Oh holy moment for the world_

_when the son of God went down to earth –_

Even sat in the small church at Sagene as the high melodic tones of the choir floated up to the rafters. It was a candlelit Mass, and their son giggled and swiped at the flickering tapers at the end of the pews while Eva tried vainly to quiet him. In his dark corner against the wall, Even shifted uncomfortably, gazing enraptured at the flame-bathed face of the tenor soloist, a pretty young man who sang, eyes closed, as if he were in another world entirely.

_For us he suffered the pain of death_

_and the ray of hope passes through the world_

_as the light is shimmering over land and sea –_

He had followed Yousef’s prescription of _no self-pleasure_ faithfully for a month, with the fixed devotion of a disciple following his master. For the first few days it had worked – he’d enjoyed sex with his wife more than he had for years – but it was no permanent cure. After a week or so, he had found with dismay that his desire for her had decreased in the same sharp precipitation as his rising attraction to passing, handsome men. Without being able even to resort to self-relief over the thought of them, the delights that he craved felt out of reach on every level, and the maddening arousal that sexual denial brought with it only served make him hopelessly frustrated merely by being in their presence.

He shifted his leg; his permanent erection had passed the stage of being merely inconvenient, and now had become constantly distracting. It woke him up in the morning, hard and demanding as an iron bar against his thigh, and its throbbing need stopped him from falling asleep easily at night, instead passing into uneasy, half-waking dreams, where he was skating desperately over thin ice, either pursuing something or being pursued by something; he couldn’t tell which, as he narrowly avoided the cracks that splintered around him on every side. In public it jutted teasingly against the tight cloth of his trousers, and now he found himself stealthily reaching into his pocket, pulling the material firmly against it to provide a warm brace to keep it down. The friction made him gasp and he couldn’t help but continue it for a few moments as he stared at the face of the singer; the desperate need to feel a man against him was overwhelming.

He closed his eyes, biting his lips as the swell of the music carried him up into a realm of fantasy; the singer’s face blurred into Mikael’s, and Mikael’s into Yousef, and –

Yousef! Every time Even thought of his doctor, he felt a happy quickening of his heart, and a smile would creep over his lips at the joyous expectation of seeing him again, in the warm wood-panelled study where for the first time in his life he felt truly safe.

No secrets had been kept from Yousef – he knew _everything_ about Even – every boy, girl, failed tryst, every unclean thought – and he accepted him still, without judgement or condemnation. It was a new feeling for the young man – in every relationship he had struggled to keep _some_ part of himself secret – but Yousef knew _all_ of him, and in his presence Even felt complete. He was the one sure part of Even’s life, the guiding light that could help him through the bewildering maze, he was kindly Plato to Even’s fumbling, childish Aristotle, the Saviour standing at the entrance of the tomb – 

His breath came quicker, the stealthy pressure against his gagged, bursting cock was more than he could bear, and his fingers tightened and slackened repeatedly in his pocket like an addict. Next to him Eva sat oblivious, holding their son who, abandoning his struggles to touch the candle flame, had fallen asleep, leaving Even to wander deliciously in a dreamland between sleep and wakefulness, as his eyes undressed the young tenor in front of him.

Soon his entire groin was engulfed in a deep, hot sweetness that could have only one natural conclusion, and he slowed down, savouring the singer’s long throat, the way he tipped his head back as he sang and Even’s narrowed eyes supplied all sorts of different positions that he could envisage the young man in. The singer hit a particularly high note, Even’s knuckles whitened and shuddered, he bit down hard and painfully on his bottom lip to keep from crying out, as the cloth over his thigh darkened into a small sticky patch.

“Go home!” Their son had roused himself abruptly and was crying lustily on Eva’s shoulder. “I want _go home!”_

 _Yousef,_ thought Even muzzily, as he tried to get his breathing back in order and gather coats and shawls together in the general confusion. _Yousef, I’m not sure that this prescription of yours is going to work._

***

Kitten trotted briskly through the park in her white fur coat and muff, trying to control the flutters of excitement inside her as she made out the curly brown head busy in the beached boats of the lakehouse. Quickly she reached into her purse for a mirror to check herself over, examining her complexion with critical eyes, before deftly rearranging her hair and snapping the compact closed.

“Hullo,” she breathed as she crossed the newly-repaired bridge with forced casualness. “I was just passing.”

“Oh hey, Issy,” said the boatman unconcernedly, wiping his brown hands on a rag. “I was just about to make a brew. Fancy one?”

“Yes I’d love a cup,” Kitten answered, trying to stop a pleased blush creeping over her cheeks at the familiar use of the nickname he’d given her. “It’s freezing.”

For the last month Kitten hadn’t visited the ballet at all on her day off. Ever since the boatman had fished her out of the lake that day and walked her back to the main road in her newly-dried dress smelling of roasted pine cones – she had more often found herself wandering in the park of an afternoon, and while she was there her feet somehow unconsciously turned in the direction of the lakehouse.

Jonas was always around there that winter, repairing boats, hammering in nails or weaving ropes, and it was a comfort to Kitten to be in his reassuring presence during the snowy, dark weather. She would sit on a stool and watch him as she drank her steaming tea, entranced at the capable sure fingers that seemed to be able to do anything, and occasionally he would glance up, see her watching him, whereupon she would turn her eyes hurriedly away.

Sometimes she would talk to him, asking him little questions about his day or the health of his sisters, though she had become skilled at deflecting any questions about her own home situation. But mostly they sat in comfortable silence like an old married couple; though Jonas always seemed content when she arrived, and made time for her, sometimes bringing out an old guitar to strum and play for her pleasure. Yet often, she thought with vexation, he looked on her as a little sister, or worse, a stray cat or dog who had crept in to be next to the fire, to be fed and kindly attended to, but otherwise left to her own devices.

But back at home – back in the smelly bed with Chris’s semen drying on her thighs and his sweating arm draped heavily over her stomach as he snored into her pillow – she would think of the boatman often, remember with a smile the things he did and the songs he sang, his courteous bow as he handed her tea, or whether she had made him laugh; a particular aim of hers.

Jonas didn’t laugh easy – he thought about things deeply for a long time with a furrowed brow – but when he did laugh, his eyes opened wide, his face lit up like a beacon and his mouth dropped open like an incredulous child. Kitten was charmed by it, and when Chris reeled in drunk and demanding sex, she would close her eyes and _imagine_ ; imagine what the dark curly hair on her neck would feel like, how it would be to have Jonas’s broad shoulders above her and his weight between her legs, and when she imagined like _that_ , she would suddenly feel her body responding in a way that it hadn’t for years.

“Damn, Kitty, you’re horny these days,” Chris would wheeze, smacking her bottom playfully. “Can’t keep up. Turn over, and let’s go again.”

Today Jonas was tarring the underside of the boats with a thick, foul-smelling substance that made Kitten’s stomach turn. The coals of the brazier in the boathouse doorway gleamed red in the fading afternoon, and her feet were cold inside her boots. January was nearly out, and February was creeping in, and Kitten summoned all her courage to ask the question that she had been pondering for weeks.

“Jonas, could I ask you something?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Me?” Jonas looked surprised at her nervous tone, raising a quizzical eyebrow and shrugging. “Ask away.”

“Could you – could you possibly –” Her voice trailed off in a squeak.

Jonas rolled his eyes and put down his brush. “Out with it, Issy, or we’ll be here all day.”

Kitten swallowed, blushed, and took a deep breath.

“Would you be able to be my husband for the afternoon?”

***

“It didn’t work?” Yousef gazed at him with interested fascination, his tone gentle. “What do you mean by _didn’t work_?”

Even shuffled his feet. “Well it worked the first few times,” he said, gesturing futilely with his hands in an unconscious echo of Acar. “I mean, I _wanted_ to with Eva – you know, a lot – but then after a while, even when she was there, I still kept thinking about men, and then when I tried to make love to her, I just – _lost_ it.”

“Your thoughts and desires for men are still your prime motivation for erotic acts,” said the doctor, nodding intently as he scribbled. “And after a while, marital sex with your wife cannot satisfy you.”

Even groaned, rubbing his face. “Does this mean – that I’m one of your failures?”

“Not at all, Even!” Acar’s face is a picture of concern. “Never seek to diagnose yourself. I’m very proud that you managed a month of my prescription. But it does appear that we – that we need to go a little deeper into what you told me last time.”

“Oh God, no.” Even felt suddenly weak and apprehensive. “I told you enough – I can’t talk about it. There was a boy at school – I can’t – I can’t go through that again.”

“Mr. Naesheim.” Acar was very close to him, brown eyes gazing into his. “Trauma – real, buried trauma like you evidently have – drains our energy. It does not go away if we push it down and try to carry on as normal. It lies underneath the soil of our life, contaminating everything. We are always aware of it at some level, it sucks us in, and it keeps us constantly busy finding new ways to prevent ourselves from thinking about it. The only way to deal with it is to drag it out into the light, hold the microscope to it, and lance the fear like a doctor lances a malignant boil.”

“I’m scared,” Even murmured automatically. “I’m frightened.”

“You are frightened because that is your youthful self still frightened, you are an eighteen-year old struggling with something you cannot manage. But I am here, I am here to share this burden with you.”

*** 

“That’s a shame,” Jonas’s lip twitched. “I thought it was my lucky day. Getting my very first marriage proposal and all.”

Kitten knew he was only joking, but her heart pounded in her chest nonetheless. “I’m sorry, Jonas,” she said humbly. “I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t really important.”

“Well come on then, _wife_.” Jonas pulled on his rough serge jacket and a woollen working-man’s hat over his curls. “Where do you want to go?”

Kitten breathed out deeply. “The ticket office at the docks,” she said firmly.

***

_“You need to use ‘agape’ – meaning compassion or charity – rather than ‘eros’ in this passage,” says Isak, rolling his eyes over Even’s Greek composition. “Otherwise you’ve not written ‘the emperor loves his subjects’, but that the emperor actually – you know – has fallen in love with all his subjects.”_

_“Oh yes, I knew that,” says Even, flushing. “Sorry, my mistake. The Greeks have too many words for love, it seems to me. I get confused.”_

_“Six words for love, to be precise,” murmurs Isak, turning another page. “And here where Helena is declaring that she will not marry Croteon for love of herself, you need to use ‘philautia’ – which means self-love, or self-esteem. Otherwise, the meaning changes entirely.”_

_Isak’s sitting cross-legged on Even’s desk correcting the older boy’s Greek homework, his pen flying swiftly along the long lines of text as he dashes in declensions and word-endings at the speed of light. Under his expert revisions the sprawling words fall in like marching soldiers to make order out of chaos, bringing a clarity to Even’s ramblings that he’s never seen before._

_But Even’s not looking at his pen, but at the slight furrow in Isak’s brow as his green eyes flick back and forth, the way the blond curls tumble over his forehead, and the smooth curve of his jaw as he purses his lips in concentration; the same lips that make Even feverish at night whenever he thinks of them –_

_“There you are,” says Isak triumphantly, as he hands over the last page with a flourish. “You can pay me later.”_

_A ray of winter sun slides between the classroom curtains and turns Isak’s curls into a mess of gold. Even gazes at him, trying not to stare, he doesn’t want his new friend to be scared off too soon, in the way Even’s intensity often turns people away. But Isak just returns the look, one eyebrow raised teasingly, and Even feels his heart pump in something approaching – the Greeks probably had a word for it, but he doesn’t know which one._

_“Pay you?” he asks, and feels his voice quivering._

_“Yes.” Isak tilts his chin up pertly. “It’s my job.”_

_Even can’t stop smiling; he’s so adorable. “Your job?” he teases, restraining an urge to pull at Isak’s curls._

_“Yes, my job. Your mother employed me, if you must know. She’s the one paying for me to be here.”_

_“My mother?!” Even pretends to be scandalised. “You mean you’re not a scholarship kid after all?”_

_Isak’s one of only two scholarship pupils from the local orphanage – his too-big school uniform still hangs off him in all the wrong ways, and he relies on the local church to contribute towards his school meals – but he’s one of the cleverest – and most beautiful – creatures that Even’s ever met. Older boys look at Isak askance, there’s mutters that he’s too light-footed, too girly, too effete – but for Even he’s everything that he could desire._

_It has raised some eyebrows at school when the loner artist and the serious young orphan first gravitated together, but within a few weeks they have found more and more ways of bumping into each other – either at the ice rink, the library or the classroom, until one day they found themselves side by side in the queue for lunch, and become inseparable._

_Even’s entranced by Isak’s knowledge, and above all his difference; the way he doesn’t give a flying fuck about things like popularity, a place on the sports team, or how much your father earns. If the Greeks valued self-love as philautia, then Isak has philautia in spades – Even’s never met someone so self-assured before, especially someone so self-possessed and certain about life._

_But most of all he’s entranced by little things that it seems too wrong to mention; the way Isak’s lashes fall darkly over his cheeks when he’s concentrating, the way his laugh sends a shiver up Even’s spine, and the warmth of his small hand when he casually places it on Even’s shoulder that makes his heart race as if he’s running a marathon._

_“Indeed.” Isak is smirking at him. “She advertised in the local paper. Wanted: personal assistant to my lazy, messy, handsome son Even Bech Naesheim – “_

_“You’re calling me lazy?” Even slaps at him in indignation. “And messy? And – “ his brain suddenly catches up and his voice dries in his throat– “handsome?”_

_“Well,” Isak looks uncharacteristically flustered, as if he’s said something he didn’t intend and is trying to make light of it – “I looked at your photograph, and I thought, well, he’s not quite as ugly as I expected – ”_

_His joking voice trails off uncertainly as they look at each other for a long moment; Even feels as if he’s falling. Isak’s eyes are wide and bright._

_“Hey! Isak! Even!” A voice is calling from the corridor. “Lunch is served, they have waffles!”_

_They jump apart as if they’ve suddenly been roused from a deep slumber._

_“Coming, Magnus!” they call back in confusion._

_Little by little the other waifs and strays of the year, similarly attracted by the new arrival – have found their way around the orphan scholar to form a small friendship group, a group of outsiders shunned and scorned by the popular boys and the captains of the sports teams; the teased and the outsiders, those picked last for football and those laughed at by girls. They too seem to sense Isak’s philautia and his difference from the average boy – and in his presence feel comforted by their own differences._

_“Let’s go,” says Isak, slipping easily off the desk and standing before him. “Otherwise Mags will eat them all before we even get there.”_

_Even walks beside him, arms linked and hand resting gently on Isak’s wrist. He loves finding new ways of touching Isak ever so casually – standing with an arm slung around his shoulder, or a hand slipped round his waist – and sometimes when Isak sits at his feet like a cat, he will reach out and wind his fingers through Isak’s curls. In the small circle of their friends this attracts no attention; though occasionally Even will spot Magnus eyeing them narrowly._

_If the Greeks have six words for love, Even wonders to himself, then which of them is theirs?_

_***_

“And so?” Acar gazed at Even, sympathetically passing him another tissue. “What did you feel then?”

Even passed the tissue over his forehead; it was wet with sweat and his throbbing headache had begun again in earnest.

“Well – that was – I think that was the moment we – both _knew._ I mean, _I_ knew from the moment I saw him. As if I’d recognised someone that I’d never seen before. But I don’t know if _he_ knew – at least, I thought he might not, but from then on – things just _changed_.”

“Carry on, Even,” said Acar softly, drawing the curtains against the dying light outside and poking at the glowing coals in the grate. “In your own time.”

***

_“This is your house?” Isak looks up at the large hallway of the Bech Naesheim mansion in surprise. Even’s family is one of the richest trading families in Oslo, and the scholarship child looks an incongruous sight in his ill-fitting clothes and second-hand boots as they walk up the marble steps. “I didn’t realise people actually lived in these. I thought they had all been turned into museums or something.”_

_“It’s pretty much a museum. Mamma doesn’t like anything new. We don’t even have electricity,” says Even with a groan._

_He takes Isak on a tour of his home, delighting in the juxtaposition of the new boy in all the old places he knows so well – the grand, echoing halls, the marble-floored dining room, the enormous staircase that winds like a river through the house. He’s aware that the orphanage child is somewhat overawed by the grandeur of the house, so he keeps it light and casual, guiding him through each floor without making too much of it. The last room is a white-and-gold door at the end of the corridor, with “Keep Out Even!” written on pink paper affixed to the doorknob in a neat female hand._

_Isak looks questioningly at him._

_“Sonja’s not here, she’s at finishing school.” Even rolls his eyes, he’s half-pleased, half-disappointed at his sister’s absence. “That’s her room. She never allows me in it.”_

_“Well if she’s not here, then she won’t know, will she?” Isak winks at him. “Come on then. Let’s explore.”_

_They spend a happy hour going through Sonja’s personal possessions, an invasion that certainly would have brought his sister around his ears slapping and screaming curses had she been there to witness it. They find some hidden love-letters written from a boy named Genk and Isak reads them out in a theatrical Dutch accent, which has Even rolling on the floor with laughter. They find Sonja’s jewellery and her diary, which is written in a code that neither of them can break, though Isak vows to crack it before his stay is through. They listen to her gramophone records – Isak sings happily along to “When You Were Sweet Sixteen” –  and ferret through her closet, giggling like children over the underwear; bloomers and corsets, suspenders and stays, and a quite bewildering article of clothing that looks like an enormous pair of lacy spectacles, before Isak decides that this must be a bustier._

_“Wait, I’ve got an idea. Close your eyes!”_

_Even obediently rolls back on the bed and folds his arms over his face. There’s a rustling and a few impatient hisses – he tries to open his eyes but he’s angrily shushed back._

_“Hold on, hold on! It won’t be a surprise if you look!” A few more wriggles, zippers and clinks, and then there’s the sound of a pleased gasp as the boy patters along the floor towards the mirror._

_“Oh my goodness,” Isak whispers, and Even’s curiosity is pricked._

_“What? What’s going on?”_

_There’s a long exhalation, and then Isak speaks, his tone oddly nervous._

_“You can look – if you want.”_

_Even blinks his eyes open and sits up. It’s a moment before he properly takes it all in._

_Standing in front of him is a slender dancer, dressed in Sonja’s too-small white ballet gown, a gauzy hooped skirt that skims her ankles and a beaded bodice that nips in her waist. Silver lace ripples along the sleeves of her shoulders and arms, and jewelled combs are pushed into her yellow curls._

_“Oh,” he says, unsure what else to say._

_“Do I look silly?” Isak’s voice wobbles. “Do I look – stupid?”_

_Even finds his voice. “No,” he whispers. “You look beautiful.”_

_He’s aware of a momentary stillness in the world – even the gramophone record has suddenly run to grainy silence – as if they have somehow reached the heart of everything, the true centre of the universe where they both stand at a fixed point while the planets revolve around them. It feels as if in that moment the world suddenly makes sense, as if he’s opened a door and stepped through to an entirely new galaxy, or as if light has suddenly flooded across Even’s own life, as if all this time Isak has been waiting in the wings, ready to make an entrance._

_“Really?” wavers Isak, looking bashfully shy._

_“Really,” answers Even, his own voice coming from a long way away._

_The dancer looks down, and Even notices that her feet are bare. “The shoes – they don’t fit.”_

_Sonja’s old dance slippers are lying abandoned on the floor, and for the first time a note of uncertainty creeps in; Isak looks unsure and embarrassed, as if they’ve both been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Even’s heart turns over._

_“It doesn’t matter about the shoes,” he says, leaning forward reassuringly at the same time that Isak bends down to retrieve them. Their cheeks brush together and their noses collide; the dancer draws back hurriedly._

_“Sorry –“ she begins, haltingly, but Even catches hold of her wrist and pulls her in._

_“You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he whispers._

_Isak struggles slightly, as if unsure whether to believe him, but then, as if drawn by an invisible thread, their cheeks met and rub tenderly, and before they know it their mouths are searching together, lips pressed hungrily as if each is a meal that the other is starving to eat. It’s no skilful kiss – neither of them has kissed anyone before though the proper thing is to boast that one has – but it’s a kiss that Even never wants to break._

__

***

“I’ve got to stop a moment,” said Even, getting up abruptly and pacing around. “I don’t feel well.”

It feels as if his headache is full to bursting – his temples are pounding and his skin has gone chalky white.

“These are – these are bad associations? That you have with this boy?” Acar is standing with him at the window as Even dithers. “Is that what is making you so distressed?”

Even shook his head, almost unable to speak. “No. Not bad – with _him_. I _loved_ him. I told you that. It’s – it’s what came after that was so bad.”

***

_It feels that the kiss continues all that week; interrupted only by short intervals away from each other punctuated by school and sleep before they can get back to the real business, the warm, slow feeling of surety when they’re pressed against each other in deserted nooks and crannies around school, behind the trees at the back of the courtyard, at the back of the arts rooms, inside the cleaning cupboard –_

_It seems that Even will never have enough of kissing Isak._

_The moment in Sonja’s room has brought things into sharp focus for him, and now all he can see is Isak, in his waking hours and during his sleep. Even when Isak is habitually dressed in his too-large school uniform he’s the perfect blend of boy and girl, of sparks and softness, brave and yielding in equal measure. They haven’t talked about the matter of the ballet dress – haven’t needed to – which makes it all the more special._

_“Mmmm,” sighs Isak, brushing the hair out of his eyes and adjusting himself in Even’s lap. “More.”_

_Now the kissing has fallen into a certain dynamic – like a partner dance – no longer both pushing mindlessly at the other – but into a rhythm of giving and taking, a dance where Isak is both suppliant and enticing, leading Even on like a bewitched hunter following an enchanted stag into a dark wood. Even is the stronger and taller of the two, and in any other dance he would be in charge, but instead he finds himself following Isak’s steps, captivated by the new world in which he finds himself, a world where the object of his desire is not between the flat pages of a book, but warm and soft and squirming in his arms._

_Even’s laid one hand on Isak’s cheek, a cheek as smooth as a girl’s he thinks to himself, and the fingers of the other threaded deep into the smaller boy’s hair. Isak has his arms wound round Even’s neck and his head tips back as Even gently pulls experimentally first one way and then the other, enjoying Isak’s soft gasps that escape from his ruby-red mouth –_

_“What are you doing in here?” Magnus is standing at the cupboard door, looking puzzled and peevish. “Isak, I thought you said you were going to come up to town with me during lunch?”_

_Isak slides off Even’s knee looking pink and confused, his customary self-assurance suddenly gone._

_“For God’s sake, Mags!” he snaps. “Can’t you spend one moment without me? I swear, you’re always trailing around after me like a whipped puppy!”_

_Magnus’s face falls, and Even feels a momentary qualm. “Come on Isak,” he says quickly. “You don’t really mean that.”_

_Out of all of their group, Magnus is the one who has blossomed most from Isak’s arrival. A tubby, teased innocent kid, he was most frequently the target of bullying by older boys; tripped over in the corridors, his satchel flung into the trees or his lunch money plundered._

_“You’re always sneaking off together!” Magnus’s face wears an expression of perplexed tearfulness, for all the world like a puppy who, expecting a caress from its master, has instead been shooed into a corner and kicked half to death. “You’re always – shutting me out! I thought we were meant to be friends!”_

_“We are friends – oh wait, Magnus!” Isak turns towards him, his momentary irritation gone, but there’s a bang of the cupboard door, the echo of running feet down the corridor and a gust of cold wind blows around them from the forgotten world outside._

_***_

Acar waited patiently. The fire crackled in the grate. Even’s fingernails were bitten down to the quick.

“Could – could you hold my hand?” Even’s voice came out low and tearful. “I can’t see any more. I’m frightened.”

The doctor hesitated, then held out his hand. Even clung to him like a child lost in a dark wood.

“Ready?”

Even breathed out, painfully.

“Ready.”

***

_**NEXT CHAPTERS COMING!** _


	6. The End of Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitten fails in her escape attempt from her dire situation, and flashback to when Isak and Even were betrayed by one of their closest friends ...

It was getting dark and the whores were starting to ring the long cobbled wharves that led down to the port and the ticket office, gaudy dresses covered by long shawls against the cold and lips painted with red ochre. Kitten recognised some familiar faces among them – working girls had to watch out for each other – and she pulled her veil down over her face and shrank into Jonas’s side; misunderstanding her fears, Jonas gallantly offered her his arm to step over the nastiest of the stinking puddles. She could feel the warmth of his arm through the rough cloth of his coat.

“So let me understand,” the boatman said at length as they slowed to a halt outside the ticket office. “Why do you need a husband to leave Norway?”

Kitten picked at a thread on her muff. “I don’t – _Isabella_ doesn’t have a birth certificate, Jonas. And to get a ticket she needs a birth or a marriage certificate. But I don’t. My only hope is – if a man vouches for me – and we say that everything was lost in a fire before we moved here – they might be able to issue me a document, or something.” For a moment she feels a prick of desperation. “You know that women can’t travel alone, unless they’ve got lots of money or a chaperone.”

“Well, I’ll do my best for you, Issy,” said Jonas taking a deep breath and opening the door for her.

The interview was not a success, despite Kitten’s carefully worked-out account. Jonas was a man of low station and his position in society was not a professional one that might command some measure of trust, unless they could produce a vicar or a judge who could vouch for them (they couldn’t). Their story that they had been married in Oslo-province before moving to Christiania was also met with little patience.

“What church did you marry at?”

“Saint Mary’s,” said Jonas immediately.

“Then you need to ask your priest to re-issue a marriage certificate.”

“But that might take weeks!” Jonas was doing the best he could, pounding on the desk in exasperation but the man remained immovable. “We need to take the next possible ship to America to take up my new job!”

“You’ll be going alone if your wife doesn’t have documents,” returned the clerk impassively. “Come back when you’ve got them.”

“Come on, Jonas,” murmured Kitten dispiritedly, pulling at his sleeve. “Let’s go.”

“You know,” whispered the clerk as she turned to leave. “There’s other ways of getting a ticket, my fine lady,”

His hand slipped down onto her bottom and he squeezed it firmly, his face contorted into a leer. “ _Many_ other ways. It just depends what you’d be willing to do.”

Kitten paused a second; the trade would be second nature to her, but this man would be expecting breasts and hips for his price, and if he chose to call the police on her when he realised the deception, then it would be the jail for her, and the rough convicts, and no chance of travelling abroad with a criminal record –

“How dare you make free with my wife like that!” Jonas was behind her now, taking her arm and moving her firmly away. “Come on, Isabella! We’re leaving!”

***

_The photograph is mild as far as smut goes – the girl has her hair unpinned and her blouse drawn open so the viewer can see her nipples – and the curve of her bottom is clearly visible underneath her artfully-arranged dress. It’s been passed around most of the year before it’s come to them, dog-eared and smeared from constant use by many schoolboy hands, and Even has sought sanctuary in the deserted science laboratory to look at it with Isak._

_Even finds the girl attractive in a hard-nosed, carnal way, but at the same time she’s nothing but a photograph; she’s cold, flat and impersonal, while Isak is living and breathing next to him looking like a warm, flushed angel after another of their long kissing sessions._

_“She’s pretty.” Isak is gazing at the picture in awe. “I love her hair. And her lashes!”_

_Even would rather be looking at Isak, but it’s taken a long time for them to wait their turn for the photograph, and he doesn’t want to waste the opportunity. “I suppose so. But do you like her tits?”_

_Isak considers, stroking the photograph with one finger. “She’s got an amazing body,” he said, and his tone is strangely wistful._

_“You don’t – you don’t feel excited at all?” Even’s a little disappointed, he’s wanted to see what Isak looks like when – when he does that – but Isak appears more interested in looking at the girl than doing anything about it. “I thought we could – ”_

_“Well I can try,” says Isak doubtfully, reaching into his trousers. Even’s breath hitches up a notch, but soon Isak’s wrist slows and he puts down the picture._

_“I don’t think it’s going to work,” Isak whispers, and he sounds strangely sad._

_“Do you – do you want me to touch you while you look at it?” breathes Even into his ear. “Would that help?”_

_Isak giggles, settling himself back against Even. “I think that would help a lot.”_

_Even takes a deep breath and plucks at Isak’s buttons with a fast-beating heart. Isak rolls his head back on Even’s shoulder, soft moans escaping from his lips, and soon the photograph drops from his nerveless grasp and flutters away unremarked by either of them._

_***_

“So all the signs are here,” said Acar softly, reading from his pad. “The template of your future attraction is set. A beautiful young man who does not follow gender norms, an outsider like you, but more confident, the use of feminine articles to achieve eroticism, successful first sexual experiences with someone who reciprocates your affections, a feeling of connection and togetherness; and though the world doesn’t understand you - you don’t care.”

Even shook his head, twisting his fingers together in Acar’s hand. “But – it doesn’t sound right broken down like that. It’s not a mathematical equation. Isak was just – _Isak_. He wasn’t some kind of _boy_ plus _dress_ plus _first time kiss_ equals _love_ –“

A sob welled up in his throat; he choked it down. “We were _innocents_. We didn’t know _anything_. We didn’t know what it _was_.”

Acar lets Even grip his hand painfully until his sobs subside.

“Of course,” says the doctor gently. “Everyone is unique and special. I’m not trying to reduce him – and you – to a bundle of sensory impressions and experiences. It’s just useful from a psychological point to discover the best mode of treatment.”

Even sighs, staring into the fire. “Sometimes it feels as if nobody else will ever measure up,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I miss him – I’ve missed him every day since.” He rubs at the water leaking unbidden from his eyes. “I just – I just want him back.”

_***_

_“Will you love me forever?” gasps Isak, hair dripping with lake water like Venus emerging from the sea. “Always? No matter what happens?”_

_Winter has faded out and summer has swollen around them hot and bright; they’re skinny-dipping in the warm lake after school where they once used to skate. There’s no one around that they can see, but in the watchful, febrile atmosphere of school they have to make do with stolen kisses and caresses where they can. Isak’s legs are wound round Even’s waist, and his body is soft and light in the water, a weightless universe where they can meet and melt into each other._

_The Greeks may have had six words for love, but all of them are theirs._

_“I swear it,” whispers Even, kissing Isak enraptured as a flock of swans swim curiously around them in the balmy sunshine. “I swear it on my life.”_

__

***

“I’ve been thinking,” says Jonas as they walk dispiritedly away. “Can’t you – don’t you, you know – already have a birth certificate?”

Kitten bit her lip. “You mean – of me as a boy?”

“Well, yes.” Jonas looked uncomfortable. “If it’s so important to you then – why can’t you use your first one?”

Kitten’s heart sank. “But – you know I’m not – that person any more, Jonas. That’s the whole point.”

Jonas coughed. “I just meant – perhaps you could _pretend_ to be him again – for a little while – if that’s what it took. And then when you arrive in America, you can be you again. If that’s not too confusing.”

Kitten pulled away from him angrily. “I don’t want to! Don’t you get it? I don’t _want_ to!” A wave of fury surges up from her stomach. “I can’t anyway, even if I did! That boy is dead, do you hear me _? Dead_!”

***

_From the moment they get the summons to the headmaster’s office, Even knows it’s all up; the photograph of the girl lying on the teacher’s desk, the tear-stained, terrified form of Magnus standing ashamedly in the corner, the look of disgust and fury written across the master’s face –_

_“Do you deny it?” The headmaster is standing before him, brows black and cane balanced in his meaty palm. “Do you deny immorality?”_

_The world stops momentarily, and everything hangs on Even’s answer; he’s the son of one of the wealthiest families in town, his father a personal friend of the headmaster, a denial from him will trump any allegation of the snivelling Magnus in the corner – but he can’t get his lips to work, can’t manage to utter a sound –_

_“I don’t deny it.” Isak’s holding his hand now, small and defiant as he faces the towering headmaster. “But it’s not immoral.”_

_Even isn’t sure what happens next, but it feels as if the world begins to spin again in double-quick time, so fast that he can’t keep up, like a merry-go-round that he can’t get off. He’s aware of his own fingers being torn from Isak’s, and the raised voice of his father in the corridor; of hearing Isak’s screams as he’s savagely thrashed by the headmaster, and how it takes three teachers to hold Even back from coming to his rescue. The sounds of his own yelling as he’s dragged down the corridor, and the way he fights, fights, fights, calling out Isak’s name until a sweet-smelling chloroformed handkerchief is put over his face, and blackness overcomes him –_

_***_

“Don’t be afraid, I’m here,” said Yousef gently, kneeling down to where Even had suddenly slid off the chair and was huddled into a ball, shaking with fear.

“I’m here. You’re not alone, Even.”

***

_“You had an episode,” says the doctor, sitting calm as a priest next to the bed. “An episode of mania. You’ve been very ill, Master Naesheim, but I think that you are on the road to recovery now.”_

_“Where am I?” gasps Even, becoming aware of the straps that bind him down. “Where’s Isak?”_

_“Never you mind about that boy,” raps out his father, standing scowling in the doorway. “He’s a bad influence on you!”_

_The doctor starts to load a large syringe from a phial of colourless fluid. “Luckily the mania has been transitory, and I have every hope that you will not suffer an attack again. You’re young and impressionable; easily swayed by the temptations of life and the excitement of exploration. I recommend a healthy regime of exercise and foods containing no onion.”_

_Even’s heart is pounding. “What – where has Isak gone?”_

_“You’re bloody lucky that the school decided not to refer the matter to the police, young man!” thunders his father from the doorway. “My own son – lying with a catamite?”_

_The doctor speaks smoothly and impersonally. “He’s being treated, Even. We no longer live in unenlightened times. There are treatments for these sicknesses of the mind; Master Valtersen will be given expert medical attention for his malady.”_

_“What malady? Is Isak sick? Where is he!” Even’s beginning to panic now, and for the first time he becomes aware of the chafed and bleeding skin around his wrists and ankles._

_“I think my patient needs to rest now,” says the doctor, pinching Even’s flesh on his shoulder and depressing the plunger of the glittering needle. “I prescribe total rest, and an entire change of scene. Travel, perhaps, or another city. Somewhere without – any negative associations.”_

_***_

“He’s dead! Gone!” Kitten blazed in fury, hurling her muff into the dirty snow at her feet. “Isak Valtersen is _dead_!”

The boatman gazed at her in astonishment, and she wanted to slap the look off his face. “He was weak! I’m strong! He couldn’t survive but I can! And I’m _going to_ America – whether you help me or not!”

***

“I’m right here, Even.” Yousef was sitting next to him on the floor, holding his shoulder comfortingly; Even had curled himself into the foetal position and covered his face.

“You’re doing so well. Can you tell me anything more about what happened when you were discovered?”

Even’s rich parents had wanted the whole sorry affair hushed up; their son would debut into society within a couple of years and any whiff of scandal would ruin his chances of a good marriage.

In the highly-structured hierarchy of polite society, the blame was clear; Even had been tempted and been found lacking indeed, but the true malefactor was Isak – a frightening creature of indeterminate sexuality and low morals, the predictable result of what could happen if you tried to educate the poor beyond their station. Bad blood would always tell. The scholarship child lost his place at Nissen immediately and was expelled from the school; Even could find no trace of him anywhere, and after his tenth visit to the orphanage, crying and banging on the door until the windows were ringed with faces – none of them Isak’s – the police were called.

He remembered little – day and night and the passing of time suddenly made no sense – but he spent much of his waking hours knocking at random houses and calling for Isak, he paced wildly round the city looking for some sign of him in shop doors and windows, before he fell into a deep, fixed motionless grief, and neither food nor drink would tempt him. Tubes were forced down his throat, and needles put into his veins, and finally a long while later when he woke to find the doctor sitting by his bed, he became aware that he was, in fact, against all odds, alive.

But months had ebbed away from him in the meantime, he was thinner and weaker and confused; the golden summer had drawn to a close and autumn had crept in slyly like a fox, brittle leaves rattling on dry branches in the empty skies. The medicines helped – at least, they blurred the pain of his mind and put him back on his feet, but it was a drugged-up, half-lived existence like an opium addict; he found it difficult to keep track of his thoughts or understand where he was.

With so much school missed – he had been unable to graduate – Even’s parents took him on the Grand Tour, common for rich young men and women of those days, visiting the ancient architecture of Greece, Italy and Spain to complete his education. It was as much to get him away from the gossip and the suspicious eyes of Christiania society as anything, but Even didn’t care, wandering like a ghost among ruin after ruin – whether it was the white pillars of the Acropolis or the huge dusty amphitheatres of Rome – conscious only of the echoes in his head.

_“Will you love me forever? Always? No matter what happens?”_

_“I swear it. I swear it on my life.”_

***

“I get it, I get it, sorry Issy.” Jonas looked genuinely repentant and put out a hand to wipe the tear trickling down her cheek with his handkerchief.

Kitten ducked away, and Jonas looked hurt. “I didn’t mean to be – I don’t want you to think I don’t understand.”

“You _don’t_ understand,” said Kitten flatly. How could he? He knew nothing of what she’d gone through, nor should he; he wasn’t like her, not in any way.

“You’re right, Issy. But I’m sorry, anyway.”

He offered her his arm again. Grudgingly she accepted, and they walked on in silence for a long moment.

 Jonas was doing his deep-thinking face so she knew a question was coming. “If you – when you get a ticket – how long are you going to go for?”

She stopped herself from slipping her fingers through his; she knew she was on the verge of a full-blown crush and it alternately fascinated and scared her – but she had already lost everything for the love of one man, and she was damned if she was going to do it for another.

“Forever, I think,” she answered quietly. If nothing else, he deserved the truth.

The boatman mulled this over for a while, as was his habit. “I’ll miss you if you go,” he said finally, and Kitten couldn’t read the expression on his face under the shadow of his hat.

 ***

_Of all the stops on the long, wearying Grand Tour of Europe that autumn, Even remembers only one clearly – the Oracle at Delphi._

_The ancients had called the valley of Delphi the centre of the world – in a bid to discover it, the god Zeus launched two eagles to fly across the world, one from the west and one from the east – and where they crossed in their flight the temple was built._

_Not for nothing was it once known as the Omphalos – the navel of the earth – there is something protected and secretive about that hidden place; the deep ravine of misty green and blue mountains, reached only by a long trek on horseback, and the small outcrops of ruined white temples clinging to the slopes. This was where the Pythia, the high priestess of ancient Greece, had chewed on laurel leaves and inhaled toxic smoke as she answered questions and proclaimed prophesies to commoners and kings._

_The harsh beauty of the ravine stirs Even from his functioning coma – or maybe the medicines are finally beginning to work – and as he walks the ruined steps of the old mountain temple, gazing around at the vanished civilisation laid waste around him, he feels a strange quickening in his veins, a dull thrumming of the air as if the stony ground is alive beneath his feet._

_His father is waiting for him at the bottom of the hill with the porters smoking a cigar; he has little interest in natural or man-made beauty and prefers to spend his time in fine restaurants and cafes. Relieved to be free of his company for a few moments, Even hovers at the entrance of the ruins, straining to see into the darkness._

_The inside of the temple – part tumbled wall, part natural cave – is black and impenetrable, but to Even it brings a perfect peace, like the bliss of a baby as yet unborn, unaware of the harshness of the world outside that awaits it. Though he has never been here before, it feels strangely familiar and it takes him a moment to realise; it is the same feeling he had when everything suddenly made sense that long-ago afternoon in his sister’s room, as if he and Isak were both standing at the very centre of the earth._

_The oracles had the reputation of being able to predict the future, but not always in the way one would expect; you could ask a question, but you might not understand the answer. The Pythia were cryptic and often insolent; here it was that the oracle had proclaimed the downfall of the Roman Emperor Nero and the crowning of Emperor Hadrian who ruled Britain and built his great wall. She named Socrates the wisest man in Athens but ignored Alexander the Great until he strode into her sanctuary and dragged her forcibly out by her hair, at which she immediately pronounced him invincible._

_A sudden hope occurs to Even through his foggy mind; a sudden wish to know, to commune with the spirits, to lift the lid of the mortal world to glimpse the beauty beneath it, to pull aside the veil of time to gaze as far as he can. He takes one step forward and presses a hand against the dripping rock; it is warm and wet and strangely comforting, as if the whole place is waiting for him – listening to him._

_“Will I find him?” breathes Even into the darkness of the chamber. “Will I see Isak again?”_

_Silence. He starts to speak once more then stops in astonishment; a voice is answering from the shadows, and his heart stands still in astonishment –_

_But the next moment he realises that all he can hear is the ripple of his own voice coming back at him from the depths of the rock.._

_“Again – again – again.”_

_Even bites his lip; he doesn’t know what he has been expecting and he feels suddenly foolish. There are no answers to be found here; this is just a place of myth and legend, of dead stones and empty air._

_He turns on his heel, but still the echoes swirl and eddy around that sacred place until it sounds like a thousand voices whispering after him as he leaves._

_“Again – again – again…”_

_***_

“You don’t have to talk about _before_ if you really don’t want to,” said Jonas as they sat on the quayside looking out at the glimmering lights of Christiania. “But you know I’m always here to listen, Issy.”           

Kitten flinched. “There isn’t a _before_ ,” she snapped, before feeling a pang of guilt at the look on Jonas’s face and she softened quickly, reaching out for his hand.

“But I can tell you what I remember.”

***

_The telegram is short and to the point; a messenger has brought it from the hotel as a matter of urgency and delivered it to his father, standing with the mule-train in the valley underneath the oracle ruins. He passes it to Even without a word._

_Even has only time to take in the crest of Gaustad Hospital at the top and see Isak’s name; read “regret to inform” and “sadly deceased” before his whole stomach seems to move into his mouth and he’s screaming, screaming at the top of his lungs –_

_His father’s lips are moving, talking, but Even can’t hear the words, and the next moment the entire world turns over as he topples and falls unconscious onto the ancient stones._

***

“So they took Isak to Gaustad?” asked Yousef gently. “Is that what happened?”

“He never came out,” whispered Even, pressing his fingers to his mouth as if terrified to hear his own words. “He died in there.”

_***_

**_Don't give up searching, Even! Next chapters following now!_ **


	7. Death And The Maiden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter to a daring escape from the asylum ... but danger is at hand in the present, as Kitten gets busted in a police raid ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medical treatment for "homosexual disorders" became more frequent in the 19th century, in hospitals such as Oslo's Gaustad hospital, as the advent of science and the developing practice of psychotherapy became widespread. 
> 
> Isak accepts his Isabella identity as a source of strength in this chapter - we'll see how she transforms into Kitten later

_It is a birth, of sorts; a hard and difficult one._

_There is pain, and the sounds of screaming; there are the endless white walls of the hospital corridors, the crackle of electricity, and chemicals that make Isak’s head whirl and his stomach cramp. There are the doctors in white coats and the intrusive medical examinations, and the cold instruments shoved into his mouth and many other places despite his protestations. All births are hard, but it feels to him as if he were dying; the freezing baths and the experimental electric shocks, the endless therapy and disgust by association little by little teaching him that all he has ever been is wrong and hideous and broken._

_“Even,” he whispers to himself as if the name is a magic spell that will somehow bring him through the darkness. “Even.”_

_But Even doesn’t come; instead, through the shameful torture, Isabella is always there – holding his hand and guiding him through, cradling him in her arms when it all gets too much, whispering to him, hold on, hold on, you’re not alone –_

_Isabella is the one who spots the best ways to outwit the doctors, to say the things that they’re expecting, how to hide the blue pills under her tongue and spit them out in the water closet. And when at night he’s lying in a mess of tears in bed, it is Isabella who takes over and makes him laugh with her chatter, makes him remember how she looked in her ballet dress and how she used to like to dance, and the times they had spent in Even’s arms –_

_Even! Every time the thought of the boy comes up, he fights it down; he’s gradually losing hope like bubbles disappearing down a plughole. He doesn’t know what’s happened to Even – he has no communication with the outside world beyond the hospital nor any way of getting a message out – even if the Bech Naesheims would pass it on. The orphanage has washed its hands of him too – he should be grateful that he’s receiving medical treatment rather than a prison sentence – and he can expect no help from them. All he can do is hope that Even will find him – and when he’s pronounced well enough to receive visitors his heart beats fast in his mouth –_

_But month after month passes and Even doesn’t visit._

_Month after month where Isak loses hope._

_Month after month as Isabella grows stronger._

***

The grave was a huge, shared one – the poor of Christiania were routinely buried in pits – but some local benefactor had contributed to a large stone wall that ran down the very overgrown end of the cemetery – where names might be engraved for the families of those who could not afford them. Pauper’s Wall it was called, and names were frequently and carelessly misspelt, but Even found Isak’s at once.

_I Valtersane, 1878 – 1894_

Even had stayed there all day until the police found him, alternately sleeping and crying, with earth smeared all over his hands and petals from the flower bouquets scattered around him like snow. It was a relapse seizure, the doctors declared, and there were more medicines and treatments, and again many months were lost to him in the strange netherworld in which he found himself wandering, until the doctors declared him fit once more.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Even. “You must think I’m such a mess.”

“You’re grieving,” said Yousef softly. “You were never allowed to grieve him properly.”

“It just doesn’t feel like he’s dead. Somehow – I think I’d know. And I don’t feel it.” Even rubbed away a tear. “I feel like – I feel he’s _lost,_ somehow. As if he’s slipped through a door somewhere that I can’t find, into another universe or something, but he’s still _there_ , so near to me, but I can’t find him.”

“You saw the grave,” murmured Acar gently. “Did that not bring you some closure?”

“It didn’t feel like his grave,” whispered Even. “It was a name written on a wall – no more. And once, I already told you – ” he broke off.

“What do you mean?” asked Acar curiously.

“I told you. They said it was an episode but I _saw_ him. I saw him – dancing in the Vaterlandsparken.”

*** 

_“You’ve got a visitor,” says the doctor and Isabella’s heart leaps; but when, wearing her white hospital pyjamas she’s ushered into the small cell reserved for visits from friends and family, her mouth falls open in astonishment._

_Sitting at the table before her is their old schoolfriend Magnus, but a Magnus much changed – thinner and trembling, with dark shadows under his eyes and a nervous twitch at his fingers._

_“I’m so sorry,” gasps Magnus immediately as Isabella stands horrified in front of him. “I’m so sorry for everything, Isak.”_

_All the stinging words that Isabella has carefully rehearsed in her head for Magnus – she has had plenty of time to figure out their betrayal during the long lonely hours of enforced solitude – falter into silence._

_“Please, please let me explain,” Magnus is biting his lip until it shows white. “I never meant for this to happen, Isak, I never wanted to hurt you –“_

_Isabella stares at him in hostile, naked fury. Magnus quails before her glance._

_“I found the photograph – you know the one of the girl – you’d left it in the science lab. I picked it up and – I kept it for a while, but then the teacher found me looking at it. The master said he’d expel me so – I had to say it wasn’t mine, Isak, and then he said where had I got it, and then he started asking questions about you two, and I didn’t want to say, but he said he’d tell my parents unless I did, so I just started saying things I shouldn’t have – “_

_“You saw us in the science lab?” whispers Isabella in shock._

_Magnus gulps and looks down._

_“I used to follow you,” he said softly. “I used to watch, sometimes. But I shouldn’t have told him, I didn’t want to get you into trouble –“_

_“Into trouble?” Isabella hisses at him angrily, indicating the white walls of the asylum around her. “You call this trouble? You ruined my life, you took Even away from me – you have no idea, Magnus, what trouble is!”_

__

_***_

“Let it all out,” murmured Acar, his arm around Even’s shoulder. “Let the pain out, and then you can let it go.”

Even wept in his arms, feeling cradled and protected in a way he hadn’t for years.

“I know he’s dead – at least my brain knows he’s dead – but my heart doesn’t.”

“It will take a while for your heart to catch up with your head,” whispered Yousef, patting his back soothingly. “I think we need to stop there for today. I’ll call a coach to take you home, and we’ll resume our session again tomorrow.”

Even resisted slightly as the doctor helped him to his feet – he was in no hurry to leave the warm shelter of Yousef’s embrace – but the time had crept late and he felt weary and hungry like a sailor on a storm-wracked journey who has, unbelievably, glimpsed the first sight of land.

Yousef escorted him down to the door and Even walked beside him as in a dream.

“You said you used to paint?”

Even nodded.

“Then paint if you need to. Art is a great way to process trauma. Whatever it is you feel, paint it. No judgement.”

_***_

_“Please, Isak,” begs Magnus. “I’ve felt terrible every day since – I’ve not been able to sleep, I can’t eat – it’s killing me, Isak please –“_

_Isabella spits at him. “And Even? Have you seen anything of him – heard anything?”_

_“Nothing,” whispers Magnus. “He left school too – I don’t know anything, Isak.”_

_Isabella’s heart begins to pound in sudden fear. Magnus raises tear-stained eyes to hers._

_“Is there something I can do to make it right, Isak? Anything at all?”_

_Isabella rakes him to pieces with her eyes, her lip curled. “Anything?”_

_“Anything,” promises Magnus desperately. “Just – forgive me, Isak, please –”_

_Isabella shoots a cat-like glance to the door; the guard, one she doesn’t recognise, bored of his duties, has wandered down the hallway to the water-closet; she can hear the tinkle of pissing and smell the wafts of tar-soap from the bathroom._

_“Yes,” she finally says icily. “But my name’s not Isak, now. It’s Isabella.”_

_***_

“I don’t know if I quite got all of it, Issy,” said Jonas carefully, “but as far as I understand, you – liked a boy at school, and you got shut away for it because your schoolmate wanted to save his own skin?”

Kitten shook herself out of her trance and pulled her coat around her; she could feel the icy cold of the Christiania night beginning to bite. She hesitated. “Yes, that’s about right.”

“This Magnus sounds a real loser,” said Jonas, wrinkling his nose. “Come on, you look chilly. Let’s get some chestnuts, there’s a brazier down there.”   

He escorted her out of the slippery dock past the arriving sailors and the working girls who loitered amongst barrels and dark doorways watching them curiously, and towards an enticing smell of roasting nuts from a nearby alley. She became aware that her face was tear-stained and her carefully-applied make-up running so she pulled her handkerchief out of her muff and dabbed furiously at her cheeks.

Jonas took a twist of paper from the brazier and peeled the charred skin off the chestnuts skilfully. They ate them perched on two abandoned barrels by the timber-haulage yard overlooking the wharf; the boatman munched with good appetite but Kitten barely nibbled at hers.

“Penny for your thoughts, Issy?” Jonas was looking at her with concern. “I didn’t want to upset you by talking about it.”

Kitten sighed, her hands pushed deep into her muff.  “Magnus wasn’t really a loser,” she admitted, scarlet-faced. “He was young, he was jealous.” She dabbed at her eyes. “It still feels like it was yesterday. The only way I can get through is by not thinking about it. Pushing forward. But –“ she hesitated and bit her lip. “It feels like it’s always _there_ – dragging me back.”

Jonas pondered on this for a long while, spitting nubs of nut-husk down onto the docks.

“But you’re here now, Issy. They let you out, didn’t they?”

Kitten wrapped her arms around her stomach feeling so cold inside she didn’t even notice the chill of the night.

“Well not exactly,” she admitted slowly. “It – had a price.”

***

_“Are you sure this will work?” whispers Magnus, as he starts to pull off his jacket._

_Isabella shushes him angrily. “You want my forgiveness?” she mutters, hauling the white hospital shift over her head. “Shut up, and get changed.”_

_It’s a simple deception but an effective one – she and Magnus are the same age, height and colouring, and although her schoolmate has always been plumper than her, the months of guilt have clearly told on him. His once-tubby form has almost wasted away and now he looks as much of a shivering wreck as she does._

_“It’s only for today, isn’t it? Until you’re safely out?” Magnus looks up at her, frightened. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in here.”_

_“I’ve spent a year in here, I’m sure you can manage five minutes. That’s all I’ll need.” Isabella shoots him a scathing glare and brushes down Magnus’s brown jacket and trousers that fit her well. Her hair is slightly longer than Magnus – they don’t allow haircuts in the asylum – but she twists it up on top of her head and jams down Magnus’s top hat over her curls as far as it will go._

_“Now remember, I need a good scene out of you. Screaming and kicking but keep your head down. As much noise as you can make. Understand?”_

_Magnus nods, face pale. “I’ll do my best for you, Isak. But when they realise it’s not you – what do I tell them?”_

_“It’s not Isak, it’s Isabella. You can say I hit you over the head, forced you, made you drink my medicine. Anything. Be creative.”_

_Isabella bangs authoritatively on the door. “Quick!” she calls out, in as good an approximation of Magnus’s northern accent as she can. “I’ve had enough of this lunatic. I think he’s having an episode!”_

_She sends a glance over her shoulder. Magnus is sitting hunched up in the hospital shift, face pillowed in his arms, rocking and moaning as she’s instructed. There’s the noise of the guard hastily running down the corridor towards her, and she turns hurriedly to shield her face, pointing frantically at the white-clothed figure._

_“That maniac! He tried to – bite me!”_

_Magnus roars hoarsely in response, pushes at the table and overturns it with a crash; the guard runs to restrain him, shouting wildly over his shoulder. From the hallways there is a sudden frantic hubbub as other guards run to his assistance, and Isabella encourages them, shouting wildly and indicating the cell as they pile obliviously past her._

_Once the visiting cell is heaving with scrimmaging guards – Magnus is putting up one hell of an impressive fight – Isabella ducks quickly away and walks serenely in her top hat and suit, down the hallway towards the huge barred gates at the entrance._

***

“Wow,” said Jonas, brows furrowed in consternation. “You don’t forgive people easy, do you Issy?”

Kitten considered a moment. “It’s difficult,” she said, shrugging. “If someone betrays me – if they disappoint me – It’s like they’re dead to me. And –“ she stopped herself talking before she said anything more.

“I must admit, I’m a bit scared,” said Jonas cheerfully. “If I put a foot wrong, who knows what you’ll do to me.”

Kitten kicked at him. “Well, if you keep in line, I won’t have to, will I?”

Her foot nudged his solid hob-nailed boot and she felt a momentary spasm of disbelief; they were flirting, really _flirting_ , and –

“Last one, Issy?” Jonas took a twist of paper from the chestnut packet and blew off the crumbs.

Kitten gazed at him as he held it out to her teasingly, between thumb and forefinger as if he were offering a dog a treat to balance on its nose. “Warm you up inside?”

His curly hair was tumbled around his ears and his eyes sparkled in the glow of the coals. He had a very engaging smile, she noticed, like a boy on the morning of his birthday, who suddenly realises that he is a whole year older - and all grown up.

Slowly, very slowly, not breaking eye-contact for a second, she leaned forward to his fingers, opened her lips –

“Police! Police raid!”

Voices echoed the warning down the alleyways and instantly every whore on the dock picked up her skirts and ran. From behind the loading bay there was the noise of whistles blowing and from each narrow street a file of constables issued in a long black line. Kitten’s heart rose into her mouth and, leaving Jonas sitting dumbstruck on the barrel with chestnut still outstretched, she pelted up the alley past the brazier, only to see a line of police advancing down towards her.

Police raids to pick up working girls and subject them to medical examination were common – under the pragmatic laws of Christiania of the time, whores were able to ply their trade in rooms and brothels as long as they reported regularly at special doctors to be checked for diseases to prevent a public health hazard. However, in practice, few of them wished to report; not only because of the public indignity and the enforced expense (girls needed to pay for their own treatment) but also the danger. Stories were often heard of what happened if you were pronounced “clean” – policemen would take that as an invitation to have a free party, without paying, and for as long as they wanted.

“Scoop” raids to pick up such non-compliant whores happened regularly, but usually later at night, when all respectable people had gone home, and the only ones left in the docks were those panting and puffing in dark corners behind boxes and barrels. And Kitten was under no illusion that she would ever pass under such invasive medical scrutiny.

“All right ladies! Line up!” A constable was barking orders at a group of cowering girls. “Nice and easy! Let’s see if those pretty pussies are all squeaky clean, eh?”

Another couple of policeman were handcuffing the whores together, two by two, and marching them down the wharf towards the medical units, while others scoured the alleys to bring out those that were hiding, and the screams and cries of those who were taken turned the area into a cacophony of noise. Kitten gazed frantically up first one street and then another, but they were surrounded; in another moment they would have her, and then it would be the doctor, and discovery, and the prison-house, and the convicts –

“Issy – what’s the matter?” Jonas was behind her, holding onto her shoulder. “They’re after the streetwalkers, Issy, they’re not after you –”

Kitten turned, and the look of naked panic on her face wiped the reassuring words off his lips.

“They _are_ after me, Jonas. If they take me, it’s all up, Jonas, it’s all over –”

His hand fell from her arm in shock as he registered her meaning, and a sudden indecipherable look crossed his face; was it disgust? horror? pity? She couldn’t be sure.

A whistle blew practically in her ear and in another moment she ducked away from his gaze and ran as fast as she could towards the wharf wall. The tide was up and the water freezing and deep, but it was the deep blue sea over the devil for her –

“Here’s one! Get her!” A burly constable appeared out of nowhere and tackled her viciously; she was dragged up by her hair and swept under his arm, biting and kicking for her life. Her elbow connected with his jaw sharply and there was a roar of pain.

“By God, you’re a vicious little bitch!” ground out the policeman, slinging her over his shoulder. “I hope you’re one of the clean ones! I’ll make sure I teach you a fucking lesson on how to respect authority later!”

He slapped her hard but she was used to that, she kicked both his knees savagely in retaliation and felt him drop to the ground underneath her in surprise and pain. She scrambled wildly away from him as best she could, but he caught hold of her ankle with one hand and held it like a vice; she kicked him in the face with her free foot once, twice, three times – and felt the hand finally slip.

With her breath screaming in her ears, she staggered to her feet and ran, her skirts ripped and the bustle torn from her dress, her hair tangled and her bonnet and veil lost –

Before her there loomed the timberyard; bales of ash, beech and pine stacked for collection; huge logs bound together with chains that were too heavy to hide under. A tiny space beckoned between the cabers; not large enough for a fully-grown man, but Kitten was slender and her voluminous skirts had been pulled off in the struggle. She dived into the tiny hole, wiggled herself as far in as possible, and lay still, trying to control her heartbeat and terrified panting in the sudden silence.

“One of them’s escaped!” she heard the constable shouting and cursing from the darkness. “She got away!”

“Come on girls, line up!” boomed another, jovially, no doubt awaiting the evening’s later entertainment. “Show us your papers! Anyone without a health stamp or medical certificate will be going with my friends here to get checked out!”

Kitten lay quietly, trying to control her compulsive shivering, listening to the protests and the slaps eddying around her as the women were sorted and herded into two different groups.

“Now ladies, before we go, we’ve a public-service announcement,” continued the booming voice. “You’ve doubtless all heard the news, but in case you haven’t, another girl has been found.”

There was a tense murmuring and clucking of tongues; they all knew what _that_ meant.

“That’s six girls in the last few months. Butchered like cattle and dumped in the street, same way. Nobody’s seen anything, nobody knows anything. And nobody will know anything, right? If it gets into the news then there’ll be a public panic and you girls will be out of a job. This kind of thing isn’t good for business, as you all know.”

Kitten frowned in puzzlement; none of the policeman’s words made any sense at all.

“So the advice is, stay in twos or threes, don’t go off with anyone who you don’t know and don’t be alone with anyone you haven’t met before.”

There was a sarcastic mutter at this; no whore could possibly know all of her clients, and the licensed-whore laws of Christiania were meant to provide women with a safe base to operate out of.  But Kitten shrugged off the warning as soon as she’d heard it – beatings and deaths were common on the streets. She was with Chris for a reason, and that reason was safety; he was never more than a few feet away in the molly-house – she never worked outside, nor out of the hearing of her watchful pimp.

Immediately the sight of Jonas’s horrified face rose up before her and she bit her lip, trying to control her sobs and the icy tears that leaked from her eyes and chilled her cheeks.

_“They’re after the streetwalkers, Issy, they’re not after you –”_

_“They are after me, Jonas, if they catch me it’ll be all up –“_

Little by little the noise of the docks faded into silence. Black night had fallen in the meantime, and after a while, frozen to the bone, she hauled herself out into the deserted wharf and stumbled up the deserted alleyways, barely-dressed and shivering in the cold night air.

***

_As the gates of Gaustad crash closed behind her, Isabella begins to run, run, run, as if her life depends on it –_

_Every step that she takes she expects to hear shouting behind her and the noise of pursuit; but she reaches the outer gardens and then the long broad boulevards, and unbelievably, the main road that goes down to the city –_

_She slows as she reaches town, walking briskly in the drizzling rain and panting for breath. Magnus’s suit is steadily getting drenched, but she forces herself along the widening streets from Gaustad quarter and into the noisy bustle of people, horses and carts. It’s a long while since she’s been here, and she flinches away from the curious gaze of every passer-by, until she makes herself walk normally, though her heart is beating non-stop. She loses her way a few times, and she’s too shy to ask for directions, but finally she finds the large road of St Olav’s Gate and her tired feet break into a run._

_“Please,” she thinks desperately. “Please – please.”_

_The mansion is as she remembers it – set well back from the road – and with a final gasp of hope she pushes open the heavy iron gate and runs up the path._

_But something’s wrong; the garden is overgrown and trailing, vines cling over the gate and the windows are boarded up. The whole house has a deserted look about it which chills Isabella to the bone. Furiously she bangs on the front door but there is no answer, and a quick look through the letter-box reveals dust piled thick on the marble hallway._

_“No, no, no,” she moans, her hands pressed to her mouth. “No. You didn’t.”_

_“Can I help you?”_

_Isabella spins around and takes in the old man behind her, a gardener from the looks of things, with large shears and a wooden box of cuttings._

_“Can – can you tell me where – where the people that live here are?”_

_“Gone,” says the gardener promptly. “Sold up and moved.”_

_Isabella takes a step backwards, the garden spinning around her. “Gone? Where?”_

_“No idea. Europe, some said. Greece or Italy or some place.”_

_A creeping horror wound around Isabella’s heart. “Greece?”_

_“Well wherever they’ve gone, they’re not coming back. Well I must get on. Need to get the garden ready for the new folks now.”_

_The man’s eyes followed her curiously as Isabella stumbled down the path and fell to her knees outside the huge iron gate, pressing her forehead to the cobblestones in anguished grief._

_“You left me,” she sobbed. “You swore to love me forever.”_

*** 

 

**AAAHHH hang on in there Isabella! Next chapters coming up!**


	8. Pandora's Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even tries to let Isak go, while Kitten remembers the moment it all began ... and we get a bonus sinister character which will change the entire course of this fic ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Jack the Ripper" was an unidentified serial killer that murdered many prostitutes in London during the 1880s by butchering them and cutting out their entrails. He was never captured, and disappeared after the last categorised murder. Many speculated that he was protected by police, or was of royal stock and covered up. After his disappearance from London, other reports of similar killings happened in other countries during the 1890s, but again the killer was never caught ...

 

It was a long, lonely way back to the molly-house and every step seemed to take a leaden, dragging age for Kitten, shaking in the ripped remains of her dress. The warm, glowing memory of Jonas’s presence had faded, leaving an ashy black around her heart. She knew she could never go back to the safe sanctuary of the boathouse now he knew who – _what_ she was – and the bitter tears dripped onto her stained and ragged dress unchecked.

The conversation she’d had with the boatman – all those memories that she’d kept so long suppressed – kept breaking out to torment her, like the evils of the world kept locked in a box until they were released by the curiosity of the nymph Pandora. She tried to ignore them but they pursued her, buzzing around her conscious mind, making her choke and cry. Like a mad-woman jabbering wildly in a cell at Gaustad, she swatted wildly at the dark air around her as if she were plagued by invisible insects.

“I’m sorry, Magnus,” she whispered to herself as she stumbled through the darkened streets. “I’m sorry too.”

***

_Isabella wanders through the clanking hub of Christiania, lost and lonely and directionless. The rain has soaked her to the bone but she pays it no heed; the raw elements are as nothing next to the icy chill of her own heart. She has been walking all day and all night like a ghost, distracted and unheeding with grief._

_“They’ve gone. Sold up and moved. Greece or Italy or some such place.”_

_“Even, why did you leave?” she whispers to herself repeatedly, as if by the constant mantra she might somehow manage to undo reality. “You swore to love me forever.”_

_Night is drawing in and the first shutters are already being closed. Where is she to go? What is she to do now? Without the one hope she had left, Isabella feels emptier than when she was in the orphanage – at least then, she didn’t know what happiness could be, and now to have it so brutally taken away is more than she can bear._

_A shop window catches her eye, warm and yellow through the rain. The mannequins in the display smile blankly at the passers-by, bare faces and featureless limbs hung with richly-embroidered materials. One bears a green dress and hat on its trim form that sits pertly in the window; it looks just her size, and Magnus’s wallet is heavy in her pocket. She’s so close to breaking point she can feel the ice start to splinter under her feet._

_“Don’t look down,” she murmurs to herself, as if comforting a much younger child. “Keep looking forwards. The trick is, even if you think you’re going to fall, just keep going.”_

_She glances around, pushes open the door and goes in, her heart in her mouth._

_She’s in luck, however, the shopgirl is uninterested in her elaborate cover story – too busy trying to make the sale – and soon Isabella has her purchases spread out in front of her, running her fingers over the glossy fabric with a trembling excitement building in her stomach._

_“Wait a moment, I’ll pack these up nicely as it’s your sister’s birthday,” says the shop girl, busy with bags and ribbons. Isabella nods awkwardly and sits down; next to the small row of chairs reserved for clients there is a small stack of periodicals, pamphlets and that morning’s newspaper._

_The headline catches her eye immediately._

_ANOTHER UNEXPLAINED DEATH IN GAUSTAD HOSPITAL_

_Wondering, Isabella seizes the magazine and begins to read. She hasn’t made it through more than the first paragraph before her fingers begin to shake and she can’t pick up more than a few words here and there, but they’re enough – an inmate attempting to escape yesterday – hit his head during attempts to restrain him – no name released – thought to be an orphan youth of seventeen or eighteen years old – suffering from severe personality disorder –_

_It’s a strange feeling, seeing your own death in the paper, and Isabella stands dumbstruck as she reads and rereads the small paragraph with a mounting sense of horror._

_“Oh God, Magnus,” she whispers shakily to herself. “Magnus, I’m so sorry.”_

_“Can I help you?” asks the shop assistant with concern, seeing her trembling. “Is everything all right?”_

_Isabella forces herself to smile with an effort and puts the newspaper down. Her voice sounds as if it is coming from someone quite different to her._

_“I’ll take the green boots too. The largest size you have.”_

_***_

As Kitten numbly rounded the corner into the quarter where she lived, it was passing three o’clock in the morning and the hour struck from the bell-tower in the centre to the empty streets which even the abject night-creatures of the neighbourhood had deserted. It was too late for revellers and too early for morning workers, and her sad footfalls echoed on the cobblestones until they were swallowed up and suffocated by the nameless filth of the slums.

On the corner of the Tjernespasse, almost invisible in the gloom, a black coach-and-horses stood; the windows of the coach were cloaked with heavy curtains and the door swung open a couple of inches. The hot breath of the plumed horses steamed in the cold and there was no sound save the slow stamp of their shaggy hooves and the swish of their tails.

Kitten slowed in sudden surprise; it was rare that you saw a coach down this way, and this was a gentleman’s coach by the look of it – fine filigree adorned the windows of the fiacre and the horses were hooved with silver. As she tiptoed past the open door of the coach, she could see nothing of the occupants inside, but she got the feeling that she was _watched_ , and a silent breath, almost like a hiss, escaped from behind the curtains.

“Kitty! Oh my God! Kitty! What happened!” Chris was suddenly reeling down the Tjernenspasse towards her, an unkempt figure looming out of the darkness. He reeked of drink but the panic on his face was clear as he took in her bedraggled appearance. “It’s past three, Kitty-cat, what have you been _doing_? I was so _worried_!”

“It was a police raid, Chris, I nearly didn’t get away,” gasped Kitten, and Chris rolled his eyes in furious relief.

“You know you have to be back by midnight, I’ve had to turn clients away! You’ve never been so late coming back in your life!”

He marched her up the stairs to the molly-house where he spanked her hard, scolding her all the while, though she knew he was just angry because he cared about her. Her bottom was red and stinging well before his arm was tired however, whereupon Chris ordered her peremptorily into bed to make it up to him.

Kitten’s shoulders sagged as she took off the dirty remains of her once-fine clothes – that was twenty kroner down the drain, she thought dismally – but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She wouldn’t be wearing it again for Jonas, not now.

“You know you’re not supposed to stay out late without me! That’s your day off gone next week to make up for lost time, missy, do you hear?”

As Chris proprietorially swung the shutters closed, Kitten noticed that the alley below was empty; the black horse and coach had vanished into the mist as if it had never been.

***

_Isabella stands at Pauper’s Wall, gazing at the name engraved before her and the freshly-dug earth at her feet. She wears her new green dress and bonnet, and her eyes underneath her veil are streaming with tears._

_“I never meant for this to happen,” she whispers, in a sad echo of Magnus’s plea. “I never meant to hurt you.”_

_The grave stares back at her; raw and hideous in the fading light. She has her freedom, at last, but the price that has been paid for it is the highest that could have been asked._

_“Please.” Isabella kneels down, running the earth between her fingers. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat – just forgive me, Magnus, please.”_

_“Did you know the deceased well?” asks the priest behind her, watching her compassionately as she struggles to contain her heaving sobs and place a small bouquet of flowers on the freshly-dug ground._

_“I did,” whispers Isabella, as she tugs her veil down to shield her face from his curious stare. “He was my friend.”_

***

Even pushed open the door of the old dusty studio. The smell of damp and rat droppings met his nose and he wrinkled it; after nearly two years sealed up the place had a sour, tomb-like atmosphere. Charcoals and chalks crunched underfoot as he cast around, stepping on the remains of old dried-up oil paints and cast-off tubes and brushes. Hard to believe that this place had been his sanctuary once, the place where he and Mikael had – and he turned his mind away from _that_ thought as quickly as he could.

He tugged at the warped shutters, and after a while they gave and light flooded in, showing a studio littered with papers, old paints and broken easels. The damage was worse than he’d imagined; mice had chewed up a great part of the leftover canvases and the stacks of his paper drawings were mouldy and crumbling. His sketchbooks had fared slightly better, their hard covers had protected the parchments beneath, and he leafed through them absently; sketches of Eva with short curly hair, an unfinished portrait of their son, a few studies for the disastrous church commission –

In a corner of the studio he found what he was looking for; a small tin box, years old, weathered from constant handling it might have been a biscuit-box or a tobacco tin. He held it for a moment, his fingers trembling.

_Let it out. Then you can let it go._

Inside the box, an old picture, cut from an art book, dog-eared and folded lay on the top; his Ganymede still kept his secrets. Underneath there were the others, the small notebooks covered in drawings that he had kept for many a year; his heart rose into his mouth as he leafed through them, looking at the art as if it had been created by a stranger.

A small blond boy, exasperated and angelic at the same time, gazed up at him; there were many such sketches, some clothed, some naked, some with the boy dressed as a girl – 

He flicked through the sketches faster and faster; they became cruder and rougher, the blond boy in various gasping, sexual positions, embraced and penetrated by a variety of faceless men with good-size cocks, some featuring Even’s own face, a few strokes capturing the action, before he stood up in sudden fury, raised his arm and threw the box furiously away from him.

It smashed against the wall, breaking into a hundred splintered pieces, and the pages it once contained so secretly filled the air and fluttered down around him like the feathers from a wounded goose after the poacher’s gunshot.

_Will you love me forever?_

_I swear it on my life._

Even stood trembling, staring at the ravaged studio in front of him.

 _Paint,_ Yousef had said, _art is good for trauma_.

Numbly he searched around until he found a bottle of linseed oil and started to dilute the crusted old paints as best he could, but the memories unleashed in the session the day before tore at his mind, making his eyes blur and his fingers shake.

 _Paint what you want,_ Yousef had said, _no judgement._

Even took a deep breath, picked up the overturned easel, and began.

***

_“Why so sad, Kitty-cat?” The youth in front of her has a handsome, roguish charm; he’s been hovering around her all afternoon while she’s been shopping, whistling and winking at her, trying to get her attention like a puppy gambolling around its master._

_“Don’t call me a cat,” Isabella tosses her head pertly. “And I’m not sad.”_

_The young man takes her grudging response as an invitation to throw himself next to her on the park bench and stretch an arm around her shoulders. “Well you’re not happy. I haven’t managed to make you laugh once.”_

_He tweaks one of her curls teasingly and she shrugs him off, gazing over at the swans paddling in the Slottsparken lake as she rearranges her veil. Privately she’s strangely flattered by his attention – he’s handsome and funny –  though in truth there’s nothing to be gained here; if he knew what she was – what she’d done – he would be gone like all the others._

_The loneliness that she has carried with her for months since the asylum hangs over her like a dark cloud; she talks to no one, confides in no one, laughs with no one._ _She has her freedom, but it’s a lonely freedom; a beautiful but empty kingdom that has no other creatures there to enjoy it with._

_“So, what’s up, Kitty-cat?” The young man lights up his pipe and blows a stream of smoke at her teasingly. “Tell your friendly family Doctor what the problem is, and let him prescribe you a good dose of fun to get a smile back on those pretty lips.”_

_Isabella should get up and leave, but he’s the first person that’s spoken to her for days – the first friendly face she’s seen for weeks – and there’s something comforting about unburdening yourself to a stranger, especially a stranger that you’ve already decided you’ll never see again._

_She sighs._

_“Have you ever – done anything bad? Something that couldn’t be put right?”_

_“Me? Plenty!” The youth’s naughty grin is infectious. “And – “ he lets his eyes stray over her meaningfully, “I’m sure I’ll be doing plenty more bad things in the future.”_

_Isabella rolls her eyes though she can’t help herself shivering in sudden excitement under his frank gaze. “Stop it! I’m being serious.”_

_“So am I.” The youth’s brown eyes are intoxicatingly close as he leans forward. “I’ve done many, many bad things in my time. You’re in good company, Kitty-cat.”_

_She’s weak under his hot stare – she should push him away – he’s getting too close – but the desperate need to be touched, to feel alive again, to have someone with her in this lonely, empty place – is too strong._

_“First important thing is to forgive yourself, Kitty-cat,” whispers Chris as he raises her veil. “If you don’t do that, you can’t expect anyone else to either.”_

***

Even painted, his brush flying over the canvas, his eyes staring not at the canvas but down the vast yawning hall of memories that had been opened up in front of him.

_I saw him dancing in the Vaterlandsparken._

_Everyone thought it was an episode, but I saw him –_

It was true; he saw Isak’s face everywhere – saw him in the boys that joked on the corner, glimpsed him in the slender forms and the tossing heads of girls – until there seemed nowhere that was free of Isak, in some way or another.

His old friends had avoided him, and he heard little news from the old school crowd save that Magnus had taken to drink and had disappeared off somewhere. There was little reason to seek out any further companions – the pain was too much – though he found himself wandering sometimes past Nissen, listening to the shouts and the screams from inside the courtyard.

He travelled with his father on business in other cities for a few months, where he would flirt with girls and steal kisses for a few moments of distraction but the next moment his heart would start to pound at the sight of a beautiful boy. His father kept a strict watch on him, taking him out only to approved society balls where the whispers of Even’s scandal had yet to reach.

A year later he had found himself bored and lonely at a debutante’s ball in Bergen town hall. On the opposite side of the room there was a girl there who reminded him of someone he knew, and he smiled bitterly in recognition; she was similar to the girl in the photograph in her colouring and features, but with her hair shaved close like a boy’s. It piqued Even’s interest; in a world where a woman’s hair was regarded as her crowning glory, the indignity of short hair was confined to convicts or the mentally-ill.

Attracted by her awkward, boyish appearance, and seeing that she sat alone in the corner while suitor after suitor overlooked her in favour of the long-curled beauties lined up beside her, he took his courage in both hands and invited her to dance.

Her name was Eva and her cropped hair was because she had recently recovered from scarlet fever, she told him, part of the treatment of the time being to shave patient’s heads. As they drifted round the ballroom to the strains of _Sweet and Low_ , she confided that she thought she looked ugly, and a tear broke out of her eye before she wiped it away hastily.

Even’s heart was touched – he didn’t think she looked ugly, far from it – and the two outsiders danced to _Gypsy Love Song_ until the light came up and he saw his father watching him approvingly from the corner.

A couple of months later they were engaged, and before the year was out, the marriage was announced.

***

_The violinist playing a merry tune on the corner is a talented one – though there’s not much call for poor talented violinists in Oslo these days – but he’s already attracted a crowd around him in the park; people have started dancing and chatter and laughter floats through the air. It’s a summer’s evening and everyone is in good humour – even the police don’t have the heart to break up the impromptu gathering – and many bystanders clap and cheer at the laughing dancers as pennies clink into the violinist’s hat lying on the ground. Some sing along to the popular melody in a ragged chorus, and Isabella joins in happily:_

_“When you were sweet sixteen_

_The world had naught but joy in store for me…”_

_Chris – he’s asked her to call him Chris – takes her hand and pulls her into the throng._

_"Come on, Kitty-cat! Let’s show them how it’s done!”_

_Isabella giggles as he swings her round – she still can’t quite believe the new life she’s living, a life of pleasure and excitement that she’s never imagined she could have; a time of dances, dinners and strolls in the park, of new dresses and long, blissful sessions of lovemaking with a seemingly insatiable paramour. Chris has put a ring on her finger and joy in her heart; they’ve made plans together, they’re going to travel, they’re going to get her papers, they’ll travel to America –_

_Of course Chris isn’t perfect – he likes to drink a lot and they spend rather more money than they should so goodness knows how they’re going to buy their tickets at this rate; but compared to Isabella’s previous existence, she’s in Paradise._

_“And even though we drifted far apart_

_I never dream, but what I dream of thee_

_I love you as I never loved before…”_

_Even gazes blearily out of the coach window as it pulls to a halt on the Stenersgata before they reach the bridge; there is dancing in the Vaterlandsparken and the bystanding crowd has spilled over into the street, forcing the carriages and wagons to stop. Next to him his father snorts censoriously on the high cushion of the charabanc._

_“Don’t know what the city is coming to these days. Holding up the traffic? Haven’t these people got anything better to do?”_

_Even looks over at the scene with scant interest – since Mikael and the hospital, a wall seems to have risen between him and the outside world; a wall of glass or ice through which he can dimly see things happening but nothing reaches inside. It’s probably the medication – it stops him tipping into despair or mania, but it keeps him hanging in a shadowy otherland in which he feels nothing – no pain, no happiness, no life._

_“Last night I dreamt I held your hand in mine_

_And once again you were my happy bride…”_

_The crowd are singing, a song that trickles into Even’s stupor like rainwater into a parched desert and slowly he sits up. The song has been around for years, and it had been one of Isak’s favourites – he’d hum and jig along to it at any opportunity – and all of a sudden the glassy wall around Even is melting and dissolving like an iceberg –_

_There’s a laugh – a laugh that rises above the hubbub of the crowd – that suddenly has all the hairs on Even’s arms pricking to attention – a laugh that he hasn’t heard in years, a laugh that he tries to recall every night but with fading success –_

_He lurches forward and forces his head and shoulders out of the cab window; there’s the bob of a yellow head in the press of dancers, the momentary impression of a face, before he’s swallowed up in the throng, but that brief glance is enough for Even._

_“Isak!” he screams, struggling to throw open the charabanc door. “Isak! Isak!”_

_“Even, stop!” His father is beside him, strong arms clenched around him, dragging him back inside the coach. “Even, that’s enough! Stop making a spectacle of yourself!”_

_“It’s him – it’s Isak! He’s alive!” cried Even, trying to wrestle himself free. “He’s here, he’s not dead, Father, look – “_

_“Get inside!” His father, even at fifty, is still stronger than Even, weakened and confused by months in bed, and cries out to the coachman who has scrambled down in the confusion, “Help me would you, this one’s soft in the head, always doing things like this –“_

_“What is it?” asks Chris as Isabella slows suddenly to a halt, her chin raised, glancing around her like a startled deer._

_“Nothing,” answers Isabella uncertainly. “I thought I heard someone calling me, that’s all.”_

_She gazes around, puzzled, but the crowd are all occupied with their own raucous pursuits, and up on the road, the long rows of coaches and carriages have begun to move again over the bridge._

_Around them the crowd take up the chorus in a burst of voices._

_“I love you as I loved you then_

_When you were sweet_

_When you were sweet sixteeeeeeeeen …!”_

_“Come on, Kitty-cat,” says Chris cheerfully, grasping at her hand. “Let’s dance.”_

_***_

**_NEXT FEW CHAPTERS WILL FOLLOW THIS EVENING! ENJOY!_ **


	9. A Very Private Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even's life falls apart when his secret is discovered, while a mysterious pale gentleman makes Kitten an offer she can't refuse ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Jack the Ripper" was an unidentified serial killer that murdered many prostitutes in London during the 1880s by butchering them and cutting out their entrails. He was never captured, and disappeared after the last categorised murder. Many speculated that he was protected by police, or was of royal stock and his identity covered up. After his disappearance from London, other reports of similar killings happened in other countries during the 1890s, but again the killer was never caught ...

Darkness had crept into the studio as Even worked; he painted faster and faster in the fading light, but it was no good. His hand could not keep up with the tears pouring out of him, the paint on the canvas splashed messily like blood and finally he seized the canvas from its easel and punched a hole straight through it before tossing it to the side.

_I saw him dancing in the Vaterslandparken -_

He threw himself down on a shattered pile of canvases and paints, his mind raw and aching and bruised.

_They told me it was an episode –_

_Did the grave not bring you some closure?_

_It feels like he’s slipped through into another world and I can’t reach him –_

The memory of the doctor’s arm around him makes him whine and curl into himself like a wounded animal, desperately seeking comfort.

“Yousef,” he whispered, rocking himself to and fro. “Yousef, please help me.”

_***_

_When you were sweet sixteen …_

_The world held naught but bliss in store for me …_

Isabella was dancing, light on her feet and the sun warm on her hair; she wore a white jewelled ballet dress as she was swung round to the sweet melody. She could hear her own voice singing, singing along –

_“And even though we drifted far apart_

_I never dream, but what I dream of thee_

_I love you as I never loved before…”_

But the arms that were holding her were not Chris’s, but belonged to another man; a taller man with fair hair that sparkled in the sunshine, lips parted in a smile that made Isabella’s heart bounce with sudden recognition and amazement.

“I thought you’d left me,” she gasped as she gazed up at him.

“I swore I’d love you forever, didn’t I?” whispered the man as he pulled her to him. “I swore it on my life.”

_***_

“Wake up! Wake up you lazy bitch!”

The fair-haired man slid away from her as suddenly as he’d appeared; he melted in her arms like mist dissolving in sunlight.

“No!” gasped Kitten in despair, grasping at him as he disappeared into a cloud of motes and dust. “Don’t leave me!”

“What’s all this?” Chris’s voice was shouting in her ear furiously. “What are all these doing here?”

Kitten blinked awake and sat up in sudden shock, her heart pounding. She was back in her stale-smelling bed in the dingy attic - they’d slept the day away; at least she had – and dusk was creeping in through the casement window. She put her hands to her mouth.

“Chris – no –“

In front of her were spread the contents of her secret cache; the carefully-hoarded wallets and the coins, her private little savings against a rainy day now discovered and exposed –

“You had all this money? That you’re keeping from me?” Chris’s eyes were glassy and his voice slurred; he looked as if he’d been awake all that time in the company of a whisky bottle. “You weren’t going to tell me, Kitty-cat?”

Kitten shook her head, gasping. “Chris – listen – “

“You’re leaving me?” Chris looked bewildered as he swayed in front of her. “You can’t leave me, Kitty-cat! We _belong_ together, you know that – we’re – soulmates!”

“No we’re not, Chris!” Kitten cried out. “We’re dying here! You’re drinking your life away, you don’t care about going to America, Chris, you don’t care about _me_ , not anymore!”

“I do care, Kitty-cat!” Chris’s bleary eyes are full of tears. “You wouldn’t leave me, would you, not your Chris!”

Kitten pulled herself to her feet with an effort. Her body ached all over from yesterday but she faced him with furious defiance.

“I don’t want to die, Chris! I want to live! You’re drinking yourself to death here, but you’re not going to drag me down with you!”

Chris’s face purpled with rage; he pushed her back onto the bed and strode to the door.

“That’s it! You’re grounded now, miss! You’ll go out no longer!”

Kitten hurled herself against the door but there was a click as the key turned; Schistad had already locked it and her frantic kicks and tugs on the handle were of no avail.

“Chris, stop! You know I can’t bear being locked up!” she cried, beating the door with her fists. “Chris, please!”

“You want to go to America? Then work double-shifts!” came the answer through the door.

“Fuck!” screamed Kitten, scrambling to the small casement window and flinging it open. The next moment she recoiled at the prospect; the fire-escape was too far away for her to jump, and the alleyway beneath was too deep; she would break both her ankles if she fell –

“Let me out! Chris!” she beseeched him. “Let me out!”

But her cries fell on deaf ears; Schistad was doubtless already lurching down the street to buy more liquor in readiness for the day.

She threw herself screaming on the bed, punching the pillow with her fists, in such a paroxysm of fear that she did not hear the noise of approaching hooves, nor see the black coach with its dark velvet curtains roll up the alleyway in the gathering dusk, and stop outside her door.

***

“Even! Even, what’s wrong? What’s happening!”

Even uncurled himself and looked up to see the form of his wife standing in the studio doorway, wrapped up in a travelling mantle, staring at the devastation around her. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, unable to do anything but stare up at her, helpless as a baby.

“Are you – do you need me to call Doctor Dahl?” Eva’s voice shook; she never knew how to talk about Even’s episodes, especially when she was on the receiving end. He knew that she was just frightened, trying to _reach_ him, but even her gentle tone felt like an acid bath on raw skin that simply added to the overwhelming pain consuming him.

“No!” shouted Even, harsher than he’d meant. “Don’t call anyone! Leave me alone!”

“I’m just trying to help,” whispered Eva uncertainly, stepping towards him but he shrank away as if she were some kind of nightmarish creature from a children’s dream.

“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, please!”

His wife bit her lip in sadness. “That new doctor of yours – is it not helping? I thought things were going so much better these days.” Carefully, as if she feared a bite from a wild animal, she skirted round him cautiously; the way she always did when he was having one of his fits.

“Why don’t you lie there and rest, darling, while I tidy up? Then we can go back home, and you can see baby and we’ll have dinner.” Still talking soothingly, she bent down to the shattered box at her feet, and picked up a few of the stray papers.

“Don’t touch those!” cried Even, crawling wildly towards her, but it was too late.

Eva looked down.

In her hands she held some of the cruder pictures – the fucked boy and the man that bore Even’s own face – along with a couple of traced sketches of Isak, in which the love was evident, in the detail of the curly hair that Even had rendered into a waterfall of hearts.

“So it’s true then,” Eva whispered, leafing through the drawings, blood draining from her face.

Even felt as if all the bones in his body were softening and turning into liquid; he had no strength to hold himself up any more. Part of him felt relief; he didn’t want to have to lie, pretend – but on the other hand, it felt painful and fearful, having her survey his hidden self, like a marsh slowly drying up in the gaze of the burning sun.

“It’s only drawings,” he muttered thickly, but his wife shook her head firmly.

“Don’t give me that. I _knew_ it, Even. I knew it all along, I think. There was gossip when I first married you; I remember. But I shut my eyes to it because I wanted to be married and I didn’t think anyone else would have me.”

She put the drawings down carefully on the table, paused a moment, then adjusted her hat and the long curling hair underneath it as she turned to him with sudden resolution. Watching her, dumbstruck, Even felt as if she was changing before his eyes into quite a different person.

“You know, I would have loved you anyway, Even. I wouldn’t have cared that you were – like this. It wouldn’t have made any difference to me, you know.”

Even gazed up at her. “Really?” he whispered, his fingers shaking. “But – “

“But I can’t take you keeping secrets from me. I can’t have you sneaking around and doing things behind my back. I deserve better. Our child deserves better. I’m going to talk to my cousin. He told me once that he thought there was something going on between you and that artist’s boy two summers ago. I told him to shut up, because I still thought – I still hoped – that you felt something for me too.”

A tear fell from her lashes and spotted her mantle; she rubbed it away as if it were of no concern, took a deep breath and marched to the door. As she opened it, she turned and looked at him where he still crouched, bewildered, dirty and desperate on the floor like an animal.

“We won’t be able to be married anymore, Even. We don’t have anything beautiful between us anymore. My cousin’s a lawyer, and I’m sure he’ll be able to keep the reasons quiet, for both our sakes.”

Even looked at her numbly, barely able to take in the import of her words. Before the door closed behind her, she flung over her shoulder: “There’s shame in being a divorced woman, I know that, but I’d rather live with my own shame than yours.”

 ***

It was late when the last of Kitten’s clients were finished; Schistad kept the door locked all evening, opening it only to usher a constant flow of men in and out, standing guard outside while they took their pleasures and left, despite Kitten’s furious pleas for liberty from inside. She could hear the clink of money as it changed hands directly into the pimp’s pocket and the clink of liquor bottles at intervals drove her crazy.

“I’m going to kill you, Chris!” she blazed, kicking hard at the door for the umpteenth time. “Let me out!”

Much to her surprise the door flew open and her pimp tottered on the threshold. In another moment she was on him like a tigress, kicking and scratching furiously.

“You bastard!” she screamed. “Where’s my money! Give it back!”

“Wait, wait, I’ve got it, Kitty-cat!” Chris’s face was red and flushed as he grabbed her wrists and held her away with little effort. “I’ve got the answer!”

“Let me go!” Kitten hissed at him furiously. “We’re over, Chris, we’re done!”

“Listen, won’t you!” Chris’s voice dropped.  “We’ve a new client waiting downstairs. A rich man. A very rich man, if that coach of his is anything to go by. He says he’ll – pay us a lot – a hundred kroner! – if you work at his private party, Kitty.”

Shaken out of her fury, Kitten looked over his shoulder; at the bottom of the stairs a figure stood in shadow, she could just make out the outline of his hat and cape in the gloom. The fight died out of her abruptly.

“What – what private party?”

The gentleman came forward until his face was revealed in the candlelight; he had fair hair and colourless skin, and blue eyes so pale that they looked as if they were made of glass. Behind him in the open doorway the black horses steamed in the chill air, white eyes rolling behind their blinkers.

The new arrival put out a hand, sheathed in a black, leather glove. 

“Charmed to make your acquaintance, my fair lady. I’ve heard that you are the best in the business for those who like – _enhanced_ pleasures.” He gazed at her fixedly, his pale eyes compelling.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Niko Magnusson. I'll be requiring some very special services for my private party, and I’m sure I can make it worth your while.”

***

“Why, Mr. Naesheim!” Yousef looked stunned to see Even, as well he might; it was dark and well after surgery hours when most of the folk of Christiania were having dinner and getting themselves to bed. “Is everything all right?”

Yousef had his tie off and shirt unbuttoned, he looked handsome and comfortable and carefree. From the hallway behind him there came a murmur of voices and the smell of cooking; and from upstairs the far-off sound of a baby crying.

“You – you have a son?” Even whispered.

“A daughter. Three of them.” Acar blinked at him owlishly. “But Mr. Naesheim – what are you _doing_ here at this hour?”

Even swayed on the doorstep, gazing at the doctor. Part of him knew, or had at least guessed, that Acar had a wife and children – but then Even himself used to have a family too, and what had that ever meant? What did convention serve, what point were rules when the heart wanted what it wanted?

Without another thought he leaned forward, clasped Acar’s face in both his hands and kissed him.

 ***

“My party,” said the gentleman smoothly, "is a very _private_ party. For myself and some of my rich colleagues. The cream of society, in fact. You will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.”

Kitten paused, as if considering his offer, and then determinedly shook her head.

“What? Kitty-cat!” Chris gave her arm a reproachful shake. “Kitty, what are you saying?”

“I don’t work outside, Chris, you know this,” said Kitten flatly.

“Oh come on, Kitty-cat, just this once!” Chris drew her aside and pushed his face next to hers. “What on earth are you doing, Kitten, this is it! This is our opportunity!”

Kitten shrugged. “It’s not our rules, Chris. Sorry,” and she made to shut the door in the gentleman’s face.

Chris’s jaw dropped. “Kitten!”

The gentleman’s elegant boot blocked the door before it closed. “There might be room for negotiation, my lady.”

Kitten folded her arms, so he wouldn’t see her fingers trembling. “Not at any price.”

The pale eyes regarded her through the crack of the door. “If I doubled my original offer – then –“

“Still no. Sorry.” Kitten rattled the doorknob, outwardly cool though her heart was pounding; _keep it together, don’t let him see how desperate you are_.

The man considered a moment.

“You’re a hard bargainer, my lady. What kind of price would tempt you?”

“No price,” said Kitten, rolling her eyes as if he irked her. “I don’t work outside.”

 “Well I’ll be with you, won’t I?” Chris looked over at the gentleman for confirmation. “She doesn’t work without me. I’m her security.”

“I’m afraid,” and the gentleman smiled carefully, as if someone had taught him; it was an odd smile, like invisible hands were pulling the flesh of his cheeks apart. “My friends are very discreet. Rich men need total privacy at their parties. And you would not be allowed in.”

Despite Kitten's calm manner, her head was spinning with wild possibilities – if she could get that amount of money in her purse, _hers alone_ , then –

“Three hundred and that’s my answer,” said Kitten, hands on her hips, as if pondering deeply but prepared to allow the smallest of concessions. “But,” she turned to Chris, “ _You_ stay here.”

The gentleman put his hand through the slowly opening door and clasped hers.

“It’s a deal, my lady.”

“Kitten, wait!” began Chris, but Kitten tossed her head and stepped away from him.

“I’d better get my hat.”

***

It was a long, desperate kiss that pushed Yousef up against the wall; he drew in his breath suddenly as he lost his balance and grasped at Even’s arm. Even took that as encouragement to deepen the embrace and press the length of his body against him, feeling Acar’s smooth skin under his lips and the wave of his scent that filled all Even’s senses. His eyes were closing with bliss when he suddenly felt a hard shove against his shoulder and he stepped back in confusion.

Yousef’s face was very pink and his chest rose and fell in shock. “Mr. Naesheim – what are you _doing_?”

“It’s Even – don’t call me Mr. Naesheim,” begged Even, pulling the doctor to him. “You understand me, you know you do, nobody’s ever understood me like you before –“

The doctor shook his head, gaping. “I’m sorry, Mr. Naesheim but you are mistaken –”

“Please,” begged Even, “don’t, Yousef. I’ve been lonely, _so_ lonely – until I met you. And I know you feel it, you feel it too –”

“I really don’t!” The doctor pulled himself free and dabbed hastily at his lips with a handkerchief, a gesture of disgust that broke Even’s heart.

“What you’re experiencing, Mr. Naesheim, is called projection – a state of hero-worship, that students can experience for teachers, or for well-known figures in royalty or the theatre – a crush, in other words …”

“It’s not a crush! I’ve had crushes before, this is _rea_ l!” Even’s fingers began to shake in dismay, the earth under his feet starting to crumble. “I need you, Yousef, you make me feel _better_ –“

“We need to go through this session another time at the clinic,” said Yousef rapidly, “with a chaperone present.” He rang the bell. “My maid will see you out, Mr. Naesheim.”

 “Don’t throw me out! You make me _remember_ – you make me _feel_ – and then you cast me aside!” Even was crying suddenly, brutal ugly tears, clawing at the doctor. “Don’t throw me away! I don’t have anyone else! I see him everywhere – I’m going crazy, I know it –  I’m sorry, I’ll never – just please, _please_ don’t leave me!”

“Your fear of abandonment is a symptom of your trauma over Isak Valtersen,” said Yousef gently, guiding him towards the door, “but this needs to be treated, Mr. Naesheim, at the proper time in the proper place. If you need assistance to get home, I can call your wife –”

“Don’t call my wife! I have no wife!” Even dashed the tears from his eyes in sudden fury. “You see? You couldn’t cure me! I’m incurable! I’m one of your failures, Yousef, you’ve failed!”

“You’re not a failure, but you are deeply upset and you need to calm down,” said Yousef, reaching for the telephone, but Even raised his hand and struck it out of his grasp.

“Mr. Naesheim!” cried Yousef, but Even was already stumbling down the stairs past the waiting cab, blind with tears as he disappeared into the Christiania night.

***

“Issy! Issy!” A voice was shouting suddenly from the alleyway outside. “Issy, are you there!”

Kitten blinked in surprise and in front of her the gentleman took a perplexed step back as a panting, curly-headed figure shoved his way into the doorway and elbowed him aside.

Kitten gaped.

“Jonas – Jonas, what are you _doing_ here?”

Jonas leaned in the doorway, hands curled into fists, breathing heavily. “I saw where you hid. I followed you back last night after the raid.”

Kitten opened her mouth but no words came out. She looked at him helplessly.

“But listen. You don’t have to lower yourself like this, Issy. You’re _better_ than this.” Jonas seemed to take in for the first time Chris and the new client, both of whom were staring at him in shock. “Are these your tricks? Are they the miserable, filthy guys who pay to –”

“Actually, I’m her husband, and who the fuck are you?” Chris had shaken himself out of his surprise and lurched forward.

Jonas flinched at the word _husband_ , and glanced at Kitten uncertainly. “You’re – you’re married?”

Kitten shook her head feebly, and Chris took advantage of his momentary hesitation to blunder forward and push at him. Jonas staggered and tripped backwards into the street, with Chris after him. In a moment there was a wild scrimmage, with both men laying into each other as hard as they could, while Kitten ran after them. 

“Leave my wife alone, country-boy!” screamed Chris vengefully. “She’s working for me and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“You’re not her husband, you’re her fucking pimp!” shouted Jonas as he thumped Chris in the face.

Jonas was the burlier of the two, but Chris was inured to pain by drink; and though Jonas landed blow after blow on him, Chris kept going, kicking and biting and head-butting so that blood was soon running from the boatman’s nose.

“Stop! Chris! You’ll hurt him!” Kitten grabbed at Chris and tried to fling herself between them, but she received an elbow in the face for her trouble, and she recoiled, holding her throbbing cheek. She was dimly aware that Jonas had somehow gained mastery of Chris and was sitting astride him, squeezing at his neck.

“You’re fucking disgusting!” Jonas’s voice was sobbing. “Dragging her down – making her _dirty_ – when you should be looking after her!”

At Jonas’s words, Kitten’s heart twisted in her chest. _Dirty?_ Did Jonas really believe that she was disgusting and filthy when all she had ever been trying to do was _survive_ , make their dreams happen –

“I don’t make her do anything!” Chris hissed, twisting in his grasp as he gasped for air. “She loves me, we’re going to America, she doesn’t need an ignorant country boy like you –“

Kitten bit her lip; her cheeks scarlet with shame. She turned her face away from Jonas’s pitying stare, she couldn’t bear to be judged, not now, not by someone who hadn’t been in her place.

“Issy, don’t go with that man,” begged Jonas, struggling to hold Chris down. “Please, Issy, no –”

Kitten took a step towards the coach and hesitated.

Three hundred kroner was enough to buy one ticket to America; she would go alone, perhaps, but she would have her freedom, no longer shackled to a man, or constrained by him. The opportunity in front of her made her pulse bound with sudden hope and excitement; this was it, this was the chance she’d been waiting for all these years …

“Kitty!” The same thought had obviously occurred to Chris, because she saw the understanding and the panic flash across his face in quick succession. “Kitty-cat! No – you wouldn’t – please, Kitten!”

Slowly, she turned to face him.

“My name’s not Kitten,” she said stonily. “It’s Isabella.”

Chris’s eyes bulged. “No! No! Kitten!” and over him she could see Jonas’s face fall in disappointment.

_Don’t look down. The trick is, even if you think you’re going to fall, just keep going._

“Goodbye Chris,” Isabella said icily, and stepped over him towards the gentleman. “Goodbye, Jonas.”

“Issy!” cried Jonas, but Isabella was already climbing into the coach with alacrity. The gentleman removed his hat and bowed to her courteously; the other, black-gloved hand held aside the heavy curtain.

“Let us go then, my lady. If that ass of yours is enough to get two men fighting over you like this, then I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me and my friends.”

***

Even stumbled through the dark night like a man that was already dead.

_I’d rather live with my own shame than yours –_

He was in a part of town he didn’t know – a maze of filthy and foul-smelling alleyways; he’d crossed into the run-down areas near the docks in his blind, mindless walk from Yousef’s house.

_It’s a state of projection – hero-worship, a crush –_

Yousef’s words tore at his heart, no less because Even knew them to be real. He’d fixated on the doctor, raised to him to a high platform, idolised him because he needed something to worship, when all the time he’d known – secretly known – that it was all in his head.

Not real like – and his mind ached at the memory.

And worst of all; he’d failed. He’d hurt Eva – used her like a sticking-plaster over a wound, to try to cover up a bleeding that wasn’t able to be staunched.

_Your fear of abandonment is a symptom of your trauma over Isak Valtersen –_

Well that was that; he couldn’t go back to Acar’s now. The treatment had failed, he was incurable, and he was one of the doctor’s failures, he thought with savage melancholy. It had been doomed from the start; he was cursed, haunted, broken with the memory of a boy he had once loved and lost, and the succession of men and women with which he had tried – with no success – to fill his place.

A large, dark coach suddenly thundered through the alleyway and missed him by a fraction; if it had mown him down he would have taken it as a blessing. He watched with faint disappointment as it clattered ahead of him over the cobbles and down towards the warehouses. It looked like a gentleman’s coach and from its windows he saw a heavy velvet curtain hanging.

Even shrugged and trudged along in the same direction. Perhaps the next coach would be lucky enough to run him over.

He wasn’t alone in the darkness; hunched figures stood in doorways to watch him pass; the whores and the thieves and the cut-throats and the pickpockets. He was at their mercy; he didn’t care what became of him, if a robber took it on himself to slit his throat while taking his wallet, at that moment he couldn’t have cared less.

A slender figure leaned in a patch of moonlight and looked at him; one of the street-youths who sold their services in dark alleys. As he passed he veered away in horror and disgust; the boy was no more than a child, and behind him a burly pimp stood, arms folded, waiting to make a trade out of his charge. Voices whispered at him out of the shadows; _only twenty five øre, sir, what do you like, do you like them young, do you like them virgin, do you like them crying –_

Sick at heart, Even tore himself away from those who approached him and took off in a shambling run towards the docks. There was deep water there, icy and merciless; it would take no longer than a few minutes, he imagined.

Above him, the moon sailed behind a cloud and all went black.

***

It was dark in the coach and Isabella’s heart was in her mouth; she shrank next to the heavy curtain that shrouded the window as they swayed to and fro over the cobbles while the coachman whipped up the horses. In the faint scrap of moonlight that snaked between its folds, she could see the outline of the gentleman’s face, watching her. Niko was his name, she remembered; he was handsome, she thought, but it was an icy, glacial kind of beauty that held no warmth or colour in it.

“Where are we going?” she breathed. “Where are you taking me?”

The gentleman smiled, a flash of teeth in the darkness, but made no response. Isabella gazed at him; his silence was unnerving.

She raised her hand to her still-stinging cheek in sudden discomfort; Chris’s elbow had grazed her hard, and a thin trickle of blood seeped down her carefully-painted skin. She brought her fingers away in dismay and caught Niko’s piercing stare trained on her.

“I’m sorry –“ she began, but the gentleman shook his head, smiling.

“Allow me, my lady.”

He moved next to her expectantly; there could be little question what he wanted. She shifted her bottom forward and spread her legs in readiness, trying to shut away Jonas’s words that automatically rose in her – _disgusting, filthy, dirty_ – that made her simultaneously burn with anger at him and shame against herself.

But the gentleman merely leaned over, tilted her face up in one black-gloved hand and licked up the scarlet stripe of blood from her cheek in one smooth, practiced movement.

Isabella stared at him in shock.

“You taste delicious,” whispered the gentleman, smacking his lips blissfully as if he were savouring some kind of fine wine. “I can’t wait to drink you all up.”

*** 

_**OH NOOOOO! RUN, ISABELLA! NEXT CHAPTERS COMING SOON!** _


	10. Masque of the Red Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BIG KINK WARNING for the next few chapters! 
> 
> Isabella goes to a masked ball, and Even has an unexpected encounter ... 
> 
> (Too many brief mentions of kinks to tag for, I hope you forgive me!)

 

Even stood on the harbour wall gazing over at the flickering trail of moonlight on the water.

Below him he could hear the roar and rush of the sea as it boomed against the stones, erupting every now and then into a seething tumult of white flecks in the darkness. The waves were coming in and the water was deepening; the tide would draw him out when it left, hopefully – he had no wish to be discovered, or worse still, rescued –

_Will you love me forever?_

He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a picture; a crumpled, old, stained picture once cut clumsily from an art book, and gazed at it one last time, before shredding it to pieces and letting the wind scatter it in a whirl of confetti.

One foot forward and he felt the ice of the wall sheer and smooth underneath his shoes. The gulf the other side was deep and cavernous; he could feel the sucking breath of the void tugging at him. Another few inches, and there was empty air beneath his toes; he stood poised on the very, very edge –

He closed his eyes, summoned all his resolve –

“Hey! Hey, stop!”

There was a voice calling him from behind; a voice he didn’t recognise but it sounded panicked.

“Stop, sir, stop!”

Then a hand was grasping at his jacket and he was suddenly falling back, back onto the slippery stones of the dock. He shouted and thrashed – he hadn’t come all this way for nothing – but the hand was too strong and he found himself tumbling down the harbour wall, to fall flapping and flailing on the freezing cobblestones like a freshly-landed catch from a fishing boat.

“Sir, you looked like you were going to – are you all right, sir?”

Even looked up in confusion. A young man was bending over him wearing a thick working-man’s coat and knitted hat. His thick brows were knotted in consternation as he handed back Even’s silk top-hat with some apprehension.

“You were in danger, sir, I’m sorry, I had to –“

Even raised shaking hands to his head, his mind whirling as he held his aching temples in shock.

He had gone to the brink; he had gazed into the abyss, but now instead of blissful oblivion, he was lying on his back on the scummy cobblestones with a young curly-haired man he’d never seen before staring at him with panic in his large eyes. 

 

It was puzzling seeing concern for himself reflected in the man’s face when he felt none for himself. The sight of such evident emotion challenged Even’s own emptiness and self-hate; an irksome reminder he was still in a world where people felt love, fear, excitement, and all the things that he’d sworn to himself to let go. He felt like a ghost in his own surroundings, watching with the pitying incomprehension of an angel the struggles and pain of humans.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Even gaped at him soundlessly, and the young man frowned in concern. “Do you – do you want to get up?” He held out a hand, but Even waved it away – he wasn’t ready to be touched, not yet, by someone from the world of the living.

“I’m fine,” he lied, and with difficulty he got to his feet and dusted himself down. He was surprised by the fact that he still had a body, much less a seemingly intact one that held him up. He would have to do something about that before too long.

 “Sir, I’m sorry, but one more thing. Did you – did you see a coach pass this way?” The young man gazed wildly in all directions, Even could see his face shining with sweat as if he’d been running. “A big, black one? With two horses with silver hooves?”

Even shook his head shortly and started to move away – this was all too much to take on right now – but something in the young man’s expression caught his fading attention; he looked scared out of his wits, and despite the emptiness within himself, Even felt a pang of concern.

He stopped and took in the man properly for the first time; well muscled body from a life spent doing manual work, large worried brown eyes and olive skin. He was struck suddenly by how little interest he felt in looking at an attractive man and this realisation calmed him slightly, as if he were a tourist contemplating  a a painting in a museum, as remote and sexless as a carving on a cathedral.

“Well, perhaps?” he offered, lamely, his tongue feeling rusty, as if he hadn’t used it for a long time. He was surprised at how normal his voice sounded. “A few minutes ago there was a coach. Nearly ran me down.”

“Where did it go?” The man looked alarmed. “Did you see where it went? Please sir, it’s important.”

Even shrugged helplessly, pointing in the general direction he thought he remembered it taking. “I think it went that way.”

The man thrust his hands into his pockets, biting at his lip. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered, as much to himself as Even. “A very bad feeling.”

***

The clatter of the horses’ hooves suddenly hit smooth stone and the coach hummed to a stop. The pale gentleman paused in the act of licking her and Isabella flinched away, pricking up her ears; by her reckoning they had left the cobbles of the docks and were now somewhere in the large complex of warehouses that housed the large timber and stone exports that were unloaded every day at the docks.

_Three hundred kroner._

Yet this was no place for a party – she could hear no laughter or music – and suddenly the warning given by the police officers the night before came back to her with terrible force.

_Six girls in the last few months. Butchered like cattle and dumped in the street, same way._

She shrank involuntarily away as he held out his black-leathered hand.

“We have arrived, my lady,” said the gentleman, his fingers closing over hers. “I hope you are ready for the party of a lifetime.”

***

“It went up there. I think I saw it turn down that alley.” Even walked next to the young man, pointing into the darkness. “I don’t know the area, to be honest.”

“Up there?” The young man chewed on his lip. “Up there’s nothing but the big warehouses. Are you sure?”

Even shrugged; the little energy inspired by their encounter was beginning to fade, and he felt nothing but cold and hopeless again. “What’s the trouble? Why’s it so important to you?”

The man stared at his boots; he looked younger than Even had originally thought, a couple of years younger than him, but with a face and skin that had obviously seen hard, outdoor work. “I’m worried. Worried about my friend. She’s in there, you see.”

“I wouldn’t worry, if she’s in a warm coach in this weather,” Even looked at him questioningly. “What’s wrong with your friend?”

“She’s – well, she’s a bit more than a friend.” The man – boy, really – looked shamefaced and stared at the ground.

“I see,” Even was beginning, before the young man took a deep breath and blurted out, “She’s a – she’s a … _fallen woman_ , sir, she – you know.”

Even rubbed at his face in some consternation; this hadn’t been the answer he had been expecting, but he forced himself to reply as gently as he could. “Yes, I understand.”

Reassured by Even’s response, the young man shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed. “A gentleman took her off in a coach and I’m – I’m very worried she’s not going to come back.”

Even blinked. Standing out on the icy dock, being handed some intimate confidences by a lovestruck young man was not the way he had envisaged spending this part of the evening. By now he should have been as cold as a fish, drifting emptily out towards the horizon, or sinking, weighty as a stone, surrounded and submerged by the mighty ocean.

But on another level, he couldn’t help but feel a distant sympathy – he knew what it was like to lose someone, not least because of the attendant feelings of shame and fear that it had brought with it; to admit to loving a fallen woman was something that no man, no matter his class, was supposed to do. When he’d first lost Isak, he would have given anything to have a friend to search with him in his hour of distress, or even to have someone – _anyone_ – to talk to about it.

It appeared that he might have more in common with this strange young man than he had otherwise supposed.

“I need to find her, sir.” The man paced up and down anxiously. “I’m afraid – I’m afraid for her, sir.”

“Well, I’ll help you if you want,” said Even, surprised at his own impulsivity.

“Really?” The man stared at him. “You would, sir?”

“Come on then, before I change my mind,” said Even, and without a moment’s thought, he started walking up the sweep of the dock towards the warehouses.

Maybe this small escapade was merely a distraction, or a last wish to be useful to someone, he didn’t care. However he’d imagined the end, it wouldn’t have been like this, he thought to himself as the other man fell eagerly into step beside him. He would never have thought that he’d be searching for someone else’s lost love only minutes after trying to rejoin his own.

But it didn’t matter, anyway; his mind was already made up. He might as well help a fellow human during his last night on earth; he wasn’t sure how else he’d spend the intervening hours until he found some other opportunity to part company with it.

And this looked as good a way as any.

***

The yellow tinge of gaslight and a low thrum of pipes met Isabella’s ears as she walked next to the gentleman up a dusty staircase, her heart pounding. The gentleman held her wrist in one black leather glove and the other resting on her bottom; he liked to guide her firmly even when there wasn’t any need, and Isabella’s eyes darted around helplessly.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered fearfully, every instinct in her body calling out to her to flee, flee, but her wobbly legs refused to move. Fear paralysed her; locked her down like a shivering rabbit fixed by the glare of the fox. Moreover she had no idea where she was, and there was nowhere to run to, save back down the stairs to the coach and the locked courtyard gate behind them.

_Three hundred kroner._

The gentleman ignored her quavering as he turned them both along an overhead iron walkway that crossed a huge wood-processing area packed with hefty tree-trunk cabers below. Above her swung vast iron hooks, gleaming in the tiny rays of moonlight that snaked through the tightly-shuttered windows; along the sides of the warehouse stood large industrial guillotines and stripping-machines that would cut the huge cabers to raw white slices, their sharp blades now poised and silent in the darkness. In the centre of the warehouse hung a massive open-sided metal box-pulley that served as a lift, conveying goods from floor to floor. The smell of rats hung thick in the air.  

 “Here we are,” said the gentleman smoothly, pushing aside a large iron door in the adjoining wall whose hinges shrieked loudly in the silence. “My friends and I are ready to receive you.”

*** 

“I don’t think they could have come this way,” said Even after a while, after they had cast around uselessly in the maze of shuttered, dark warehouses. “There’s nothing up here, and we’d hear the horses if they parked anywhere.”

“Wait!” The young man – Jonas or something, Even hadn’t really paid attention to polite introductions – was casting around in the sludge by the corner, keen as a terrier. “There’s wheel-tracks here. They went up that way!”

“Up there?” Even gazed, tired and disinterested at the blind alley, closed by a high iron gate from wall to wall. “You mean they drove straight into the warehouse?”

“Maybe. I’m going to take a look.” The bushy-haired young man took a step back and then launched himself at the gate, scrabbling for a foot or toe-hold to haul himself up, but his boots slipped on the flat iron surface and he fell uselessly down onto the cobbles.

“Goodness, you’ll hurt yourself. Let me have a go.” Even crouched and then sprang like a cat; he was taller than Jonas so he could hook his elbows over the top of the gate and pull himself up enough to see what awaited the other side. He hung there, panting for a moment, taking in the jumbled shapes in the darkness beyond, before he jumped down to make his report.

“Well there’s some kind of a coach in the courtyard there, but it’s deserted. Horses are all tied up and blanketed. I can’t see anything.”

“They’re here, then,” Jonas gazed up at the darkened warehouse soberly. “We have to find a way in.”

***

Isabella blinked as she stepped through the grating iron door, and took in the sight beyond the thick warehouse walls.

It was a large vaulted space, of the type used to store large timber bales or cut-stone, but no goods were here now. A room within a room, it was invisible from the outside of the warehouse and no light filtered in from outside, here the air was thick and suffocating, oil lamps flickering on the walls and the smell of gasoline surrounded them like a wave.

The floor was strewn with sawdust, and its large width was divided into different rooms by means of long silk banners hung over cords strung end to end; a maze of blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. Illuminated behind the tented sections black shadows could be seen moving towards each other in a variety of positions; twos and threes and multiples, the many-coloured silken sheets heaving and swaying with the panting breaths behind them.

Murmurs of male voices and the occasional high-pitched giggle of a female swam through the air towards her, and as she found her feet and began to move with the gentleman between the hanging silks she started to glimpse slow trickles of the clientele. All wore masks; some were dressed gorgeously in costume frocks that distorted their figures but many of them were naked, or wearing hats and shoes and little else. A girl with booted heels so high she could barely walk shuffled past, her heels linked together with a small silver chain; a naked man led two girls on leads like dogs, large fluffy tails made of horse-hair inserted deep into their bottoms. A tall man, entirely covered in body paint, hung upside down from a large cross that was nailed to a wall, while two larger men took turns to urinate on him; he turned his head blissfully back and forth in the hot flow, opening his mouth to ask for more.

Up ahead there was a raised dais where a group of naked women were playing harp and cello, the instruments pressed so hard against their breasts or between their plump knees that they left dark indentations on their flesh. A man so small he looked like a boy capered by, wearing a scarf wound round his eyes as a mask, giggling and howling like a wolf. To her left, a young woman with her hair in pigtails was lying face down over an older man’s knee and spanked hard while she played with a doll, and on their right a masked man stood pressed up against a wooden table with his cock stretched out on the surface while a dark-skinned woman pressed long silver pins through his scrotum while he shuddered and cried out in delight.

Isabella took a deep breath; most of what she was seeing wasn’t new to her, but the scale and the excess of the event was unparalleled, and not for the first time she wondered what special services she was expected to provide in a place where so much was being done for free.

“This is your room,” said the gentleman, guiding her towards the centre, a scarlet silk tent with a long drape concealing the entrance that served as a door. “Take your clothes off, but keep your hat and veil on.”

***

It took a lot of hauling and shoving and Even’s strength was pretty much exhausted by the time he and Jonas tumbled down into the courtyard in a tangle of limbs. He leaned his head back on the cold gate, his thoughts whirling; _why_ he was doing this in the very hours when he should be plotting his own death escaped him, but perhaps it was merely a welcome interruption, or a muffled call from his heart to do something to stave off the final hour.

Well, he’d had his time, and once this obviously fruitless endeavour – the fallen woman was obviously quite happy to take her chances with a rich gentleman – was over, he’d be free again, free to take his chances with the icy ocean, or perhaps some other opportunity would present itself in the meantime.

He dragged himself to his feet and held out a hand to help Jonas up. The man took it gingerly and with some surprise – gentlemen did not ever touch the working class – and got awkwardly to his feet, brushing himself down.

“Thank you, sir,” he mumbled. “I really mean it – thank you.”

“Let’s go then,” said Even, striding towards the gloomy warehouse door, past the deserted velvet coach that stood shrouded in darkness outside.

As they passed the black-clad horses, they shied abruptly and their eyes rolled whitely in the black night as if they scented blood. Even pulled Jonas to the side, away from their rearing hooves, and they disappeared like two silent shadows underneath the dusty arch.

Jonas led the way, eager as a beagle on the trail of a fox, finding the dusty footprints that led upstairs and along the high walkway that surrounded the cutting machines. There was no sound in the blackness, no grunts or moans or the other wet, tell-tale sounds of sex; the woman and her client couldn’t be anywhere around here. The hackles on the back of Even’s neck began to rise; was this all an elaborate plot on his new friend’s part to lure a rich gentleman in and rob him, or murder him even? Well Jonas was welcome to all that he had, Even had no need of it anymore.

He was just starting to wonder what would happen once they reached the top, when Jonas found the door in the wall. From behind it came a steady stream of gasps and grunts. Jonas gazed at it in frank dismay. Even stepped forward.

“Well, here goes,” he said, and pushed it gingerly open.

***

Isabella sat, naked save for her hat and veil, on the small stool in the middle of the red tent. Around her she could hear the hums and gasps of the gathering crowd engaged in their various orgies, but no one came to visit her or require any services in particular; it seemed an odd circumstance, and she crossed and uncrossed her legs, her skin prickling in the gaseous heat, trying to get comfortable.

_Three hundred kroner._

She could feel her fingers shivering in anticipation, she could already feel the wind tumbling through her hair as she boarded the boat, and smell the salt catch in the air as she sailed through the open ocean to her new life with her ticket in her purse.

Her green eyes narrowed like a cat measuring the distance between rooftop to rooftop before its final jump, and she took a deep breath.

She’d make it through to the end of this night, no matter what might happen.

***

Jonas gazed in pop-eyed astonishment at the scene before them. “I can’t believe it,” he murmured. “What’s going on?”

Even stared about him, jolted briefly out of his fatalistic stupor. Whatever he’d imagined to find behind the iron door, it wasn’t – _this_.

Up on a mock, Satanic altar a young woman in white knelt with her bottom bared ready to be flogged by two large eunuchs, and by the side, a man imprisoned in a painfully small cage was being manually pleasured by a girl dressed as an angel. Across from him two pretty girls sucked the nipples of a pregnant woman who lay on a pile of cushions while a third lay between her thighs and licked at her like a thirsty dog.

Around them moved the flickering, unworldly crowd engaged in a variety of pursuits that Even couldn’t even put a name to; the array of costumes and body parts on display were visually stunning but also disconcerting, as if a saturnalia of ancient Rome had come to life, to put the orgies of Nero and Caligula to shame.

“So … which one is she then?” he asked, his voice coming out comically normal, as if he and Jonas were just out on a stroll in the park, looking at girls on a sunny day.

Jonas was shaking his head, looking from side to side in bafflement. “She shouldn’t be here,” muttered Jonas to himself. “She’s too good for this place.”

“Should we look around?” Even felt it was somehow fitting that he spent his last hours on earth in the company of the damned; the hellish glow that suffused the room lit up plenty that he’d like to look closer at before his time was up. Immediately before them, two young men were lying on the floor caressing each other while a tall woman stood above them, digging her high heels into their flesh to leave red welts. He gazed at the men as their bodies rutted against each other frantically, skin gliding against sweaty skin in a frenzy of carnal need, and despite himself felt a prick of sadness and loss. There was a time where he would have welcomed a place like this, a place to lose himself in the hard needs of the physical and forget the aching of his heart; there were handsome men and boys here, plenty of them who would return his advances, but in this gasping, urgent bacchanal he felt no love, no tenderness, no affection – and consequently felt even more alone than before.

“I’m not sure we’re really dressed for this place,” whispered Jonas, in an attempt at grim humour, and it was true; Jonas in his workaday cord trousers and checked shirt stuck out like a sore thumb in a hand of painted, glittered nails.

“Well, better lose some clothes then.” Even pulled jestingly at Jonas’s jacket, but Jonas flinched and shuddered. “No! I’m not doing that! I’m not like – _them_!”

“Jonas! Wait!” cried Even, but it was too late; Jonas was already shouldering his way through the crowd, causing many of them to jump and stare at him. In a minute he had disappeared into the first of the silken sheets that hung around them, and Even could hear his voice upraised, bellowing.

“Isabella! _Isabella_!”

***

Isabella sat up straight as the gentleman from the coach came in; he was carrying a small black doctor’s bag which he placed carefully down on the side. She could hear the jingle of metal objects inside it and relaxed; the special services he was obviously after could only be medical exploration, and Isabella was good at performance. She had played every character in existence apart from her own with clients, so she immediately started to get into role.

“Are you here to examine me, Doctor?” she breathed seductively, leaning back as far as she could on the uncomfortable stool.

The gentleman made no word, but she caught a flash of interest in his eyes. Out of all the patrons he was still the most fully clothed; dressed in his sober suit and hat like a visiting practitioner; the black leather gloves still sheathing his hands. She took a deep breath and resigned herself, spreading her thighs as he knelt down and carefully laid out a large scarlet sheet around her. In a line he laid a small row of instruments; a long extended mirror like a dentist, a couple of probes and a shining metal speculum.

“Kneel down on the sheet please,” he murmured, and Isabella obeyed, pushing her bottom out and bracing her hands on her knees to make herself look as good as possible. _Three hundred kroner_ – the words rang in her ears, as he began to run his gloved hands over her skin, with a cold gliding motion that made her shiver.

There was a small scratch along her arm from her tussle with Chris earlier; he paid special attention to that, her cheek, and any other small hurts and scrapes that she had sustained. His hands and mouth travelled over her body, down and further down so she could feel his cold breath and the thirsty licks of his snakelike tongue as he lapped at her wounds, teasing out the blood from those that had healed, and sucking feverishly at those that were still fresh.

“You’re such a delicious drink,” he muttered, pulling at his cock; she could feel him hard and demanding through his trousers. He knelt up behind her and fumbled for his bag, she could hear the clink of metal objects and the blade of something cold moving down her thigh; probably a speculum or other kind of medical examination tool. She dropped her head and moved her ass suggestively, she could feel him shuddering as the black-gloved fingers slipped around her buttocks and started to probe inside her –

“Sir! Mr Magnusson! I’m sorry!”

Isabella jumped. A patron, crowned with a mask and antlers like a stag, had drawn aside the silken sheet and thrust its head into the tent. The gentleman turned with a curse.

“What is it! What do you want?”

The stag shook its head and beckoned him closer, talking fast and urgently in a lowered voice. Isabella could dimly hear the words _strangers_ and _intrusion into the party_ before the gentleman got up off his knees, cramming his stiff cock back into his trousers with difficulty.

“Wait there,” he ordered over his shoulder to Isabella, following the stag out of the tent. “Wait until I come back.”

***

_**ARRGHHHH!!! NEXT CHAPTERS FOLLOWING SOON!!!** _


	11. Fallen Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danger is all around them in the masquerade, as Isabella and Even finally meet, but with Death close on their tail ...
> 
> (Mentions of blood and violence in this chapter (not Evak's) and major character death - what's a victorian novel without a bit of melodrama, eh?)

Even moved dispassionately through the swirling, seething crowd of revellers, searching for Jonas.

Despite the exotic nature of the party he felt strangely detached from it all, as if he were grim Dante journeying through the second circle of hell to see the exploits of those condemned by the sin of lust, or the black figure of Death wandering through the revels of Prospero’s castle as he sought his victim. It seemed to Even that the creatures around him, gorgeously adorned that they were, were no more real than the monsters – half-human, half-animal – depicted in the nightmarish medieval paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.

Before him there knelt a youth down on his hands and knees, being fucked hard by a woman wearing something strapped to her pelvis with a leather harness like a horse; his head was down and his mask – a sumptuous white creation made of swan’s feathers – had slipped off from the force of her thrusts and now lay disregarded between his twitching hands. Even bent quickly and scooped it up before the dirt and filth of the crowd could get to it; he had a feeling that anonymity was the only thing that would help him in this netherworld.

Fastening the swan-mask around his eyes he walked on quickly, seeking for Jonas’s burly frame in the panting, surging crowd, pulling aside the many-coloured silken drapes to glance inside as he went, though he had no idea what the woman he sought actually looked like. From the unseen commotion building up ahead he had a feeling that the impulsive young man would need some assistance before long; and if he didn’t make it out of this party alive, then at least some good would have come of this whole sorry affair.

***

Isabella sat up uncertainly, drawing the scarlet silken sheet around her. The pale gentleman’s abrupt departure had unsettled her, and she could dimly hear some kind of ruckus starting from the distance. She frowned anxiously; any disruption of the party might result in her not getting her promised money, and with _everything_ riding on this last gamble, it wasn’t one she could afford to lose.

_Three hundred kroner –_

Her foot pushed against the doctor’s bag and it clinked as it fell to the side; seized with curiosity she leaned over and peered in. There was a length of shining black rope, and bandages, and – she caught her breath as she saw them; a set of knives in a black roll like a chef’s, long and glinting and infinitely sharp.

Isabella had serviced plenty of clients who enjoyed inflicting pain as part of their pleasures; sometimes they brought apparatus with them just for show, and sometimes not – but to stop things going too far was what she always had Chris for; and now with her security gone, she felt vulnerable and scared.

She fought to reassure herself; this wasn’t some dark alley where nameless things might happen, she was in a party surrounded by people, she was safe, she must be, she _had_ to be –

_Three hundred kroner._

From outside there was a sudden scream and a curse, and the confused noise of people running. Isabella sprang up in dismay; a disrupted party meant no satisfied gentleman, and no satisfied gentleman meant no pay. As the noise of brawling began in earnest, she heard with a shock of recognition her own name being bawled out.

“Isabella! _Isabella_!”

Isabella’s heart sank. “Jonas!” she hissed furiously, clasping her hands to her face in shock at the realisation of what must be happening outside. Dropping the sheet, she ran to the corner to conceal herself and crouched there uncertainly.

Fury built up in her chest at the thought of the big-hearted, blundering boatman; how _dare_ he shame her, make her feel worthless and dirty, then crash the private party and ruin her only chance of escaping _all of this_ –

There was a rustle from the entrance and she looked up in panic, expecting Niko, or worst, Jonas, but instead a tall man, dressed handsomely in an expensive suit, his fair face masked by graceful plumes of white fluffy swan’s feathers, had drawn aside the drape of her tent, looking around the ruddy depths in frank bewilderment.

Isabella’s hands went automatically to her veil and pulled it down. The swan-man hadn’t noticed her in the corner at first, and at her movement he jumped slightly as he swung round abruptly and took in her crouched form.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” he said in a husky, deep voice after a moment of surprise. “I was just looking for my friend.”

The sound of his voice pricked Isabella’s curiosity, and if it wasn’t for her fear she would have searched her memory further, but as it was, she got to her feet and fumbled for the sheet to cover herself. As she did so, the man stiffened with an unspoken shock of interest and Isabella could see his eyes behind the mask travelling over her with fascination, taking in the juxtaposition of her long curled hair, her lipsticked mouth just visible under her veil and her bare, slender boy’s body.

She blushed, and pulled the sheet up around her, winding it briskly about herself like a Roman toga, feeling the man’s gaze on her like a warm caress. There was a strange, expectant moment between them, like the quivering of a bow as it fires its arrow, or the soft, barely-there moment as the strings of an orchestra begin to play, the notes vibrating in silent oscillation before the audience finally hears them as the music that they are.

“Anyway, he’s not here so – I’ll go,” the swan-man was beginning, before Isabella stepped towards him curiously; she felt a strange reluctance to let this stranger leave, for reasons she couldn’t explain.

“You mean Niko? The man who’s holding the party?”

She could see a glimpse of fair hair behind the mask, a long throat and plump red lips, slightly parted as he looked down at her.

The intensity of his gaze through the feathers – so direct and yet so unthreatening – was as intoxicating to Isabella as a large draught of red wine on an empty stomach. Her cheeks flushed, and despite her nerves, she tossed her head and drew herself up straight, enjoying the feeling of the man’s eyes on her.

“Everyone seems to be looking for him all of a sudden.”

The swan-man smiled suddenly, breaking the tension, and she caught an attractive flash of teeth below the trailing wisps of feathers.

“I’ve no idea about this Niko,” he said in the same husky, familiar, deep voice that seemed to flood over Isabella’s skin and down between her legs like a warm milk bath. “I didn’t really get an invitation, to be honest.”

A hoarse shout echoed somewhere outside and Isabella looked hurriedly over her shoulder.

“What’s going on? Is there some kind of fight?”

The swan-man shrugged charmingly. “I think so,” he said softly, staring at her intently, and again there was that chime in Isabella’s memory like the sound of distant cathedral bells floating into the early morning, like the glitter of sunlight on a lake around her or the soft flurry of a swan’s wings as it flew overhead;   _somewhere_ , at some point, she had known this feeling before –

“ _Isabella_!” hollered Jonas, very close now, and Isabella jumped at the sound, dismay overwhelming her. The swan-man saw her distress and turned swiftly –

“Issy!” Jonas had torn aside the drape from the tent and forced his way in, shaking with mingled fury and relief as he spied her. “Thank God you’re all right! You have to get away from here now!”

“No! Jonas!” Isabella swatted at him furiously. “Leave me alone!”

“You need rescuing! I’m here to _rescue_ you, Issy!” shouted Jonas angrily.

Isabella backed away, shaking her head. “No! This is my _job_ , Jonas, you have no idea –“

“This is no job!” howled Jonas furiously. “This is exploitation! _Come on!”_

He grabbed at her wrists and she fought him off with a ferocity that surprised even her.

“I want to go to America, Jonas! I need this money! Why do you have to ruin _everything_!”

“Hey, hey, easy!” The swan-man had stepped forward and caught at Jonas’s shoulder, pulling him away from Isabella. “If the lady doesn’t want to leave, you mustn’t force her, Jonas. She can make up her own mind, I’m sure.”

Isabella felt a warm rush of blood to her cock at the use of the word _lady_ , and licked her lips involuntarily; the next moment she was irritably shaking herself, what on _earth_ was going on with her at a time like this?

She folded her arms and faced Jonas down defensively.

“I’m not coming, Jonas. You need to go now, or you’re going to spoil the only chance I have. _Please_ ,” she begged him. “Just – _go_.”

“Come on, Jonas,” said the swan-man, pulling at Jonas’s arm. “You’ve had your answer now, you need to respect her wishes.”

“You don’t need to go to America, Issy!” Jonas fell to his knees in front of her, hands raised in supplication. “Stay with me. I know I don’t have hundreds of kroner, I can’t get you a birth certificate or a ticket to America, but you’d be safe with me, I know the boathouse isn’t some kind of fine mansion, it isn’t what you’re after, but –“

Isabella stared down at him, as Jonas reached up to take her hand.

“I wouldn’t treat you like Chris. I wouldn’t _force_ you to degrade yourself. You could get _help_ , Issy, you wouldn’t be a fallen woman any longer.”

“I’m not _fallen_ ,” Isabella drew back her hand, as if his touch burned her. “I didn’t fall from anywhere. Stop trying to put me on a pedestal, Jonas. I’m just me.”

***

Even stood, staring at the defiant girl in front of him in her red scarlet sheet and veil as she glared at the kneeling Jonas. She seemed so familiar though he had never met her before, like a half-remembered song from childhood, as if she was someone he’d spent his life waiting to meet –

For the first moment the black clouds that had descended upon him for so long started to thin as if the sun was suddenly shining through the mists to illuminate the path of the lost wanderer, the confusing murk changing into a sea of gold at his feet.

 _Isabella_ , Jonas had called her; even her name seemed sweet as a ripple of harp music.

Despite the danger, his eyes strayed down the long sweep of her back and the curve of her round bottom under the tightly-wound red sheet. He felt a sudden exultation; he felt _alive_ again, the blood moving hot through his veins as if the horrors of the night earlier were already receding, the void closing, the lure of the cold ocean’s embrace evaporating into warm breath and the need for closeness, the wish to be held by someone, someone living –

Jonas was talking fast and urgently but Even had tuned out of his pleas, focused only on the sight of the girl in front of him. Her name and her dress clearly signalled how she wanted to be referred to, but despite himself Even salivated at the recollection of her boyish body and the small cock hanging shyly between her thighs.

He couldn’t see much of her face beneath the veil but he could see she was pretty, a small red mouth in the shape of a cupid’s bow, the feline sweep of her cheek and the little cleft in her chin. His estimation of Jonas suddenly rose tenfold; this Isabella was _definitely_ someone worth chasing, but if she didn’t want to come with him, then there was no way they should possibly make her.

 _But I want you to come with me_ , he thought involuntarily, gazing entranced at her. _If you want to._

“Here he is!” The silk of the tent was suddenly torn asunder and a pale, black-clad gentleman, followed by a reveller dressed as a stag, a few of the eunuchs and other patrons of the party, stood panting in the doorway. “Grab him!”

Jonas turned, face black with anger. “You scum!” he roared, charging at the pale gentleman. “You fucking swinish bastard!”

“No! Jonas!” cried Isabella, but Jonas had already flung himself on the pale gentleman in a flurry of blows and tackled him to the floor, planting one knee in his chest and landing punch after punch on his smooth face. The stag leapt forward to pull him off, but it took three eunuchs to finally supplant him, Jonas roaring and bucking helplessly in their iron grip.

“Oh God! What have you done!” Isabella’s cheeks were stained with tears as she ran to the beaten figure lying on the ground.

“Niko, Niko, I’m so sorry – please!”

The pale gentleman got slowly to his feet; his face a red mask of blood, but he didn’t seem upset. He drew one gloved finger down his cheek and surveyed it as if surprised about what he found there, raised the reddened leather tip to his tongue and sucked at it, licking his lips with enjoyment, like a sommelier savouring a fine bordeaux.

“Well, that’s certainly got the party started,” he muttered lasciviously, his breath coming hard and fast from his chest, reaching down into his crotch to tug himself unashamedly in gathering lust. “Nothing like a bit of human wine to get things going.”

Even’s jaw dropped, and he stood rooted to the ground in shock. Around him there was a slow, approving murmur and movement; the tent was gradually filling up with people, though no one gave him in his swan-mask a second glance. With his gentleman’s suit he fitted in with the other patrons in a way that Jonas did not.

He stood, motionless, as the man – _Niko_ , Isabella had called him – reached into a small black bag and took out a black roll, slowly unwrapping it as he moved towards Jonas with a swaying motion like a cobra.

“You know, I’d had our fair Isabella down as my main dish tonight, but I think you, Jonas, might do very well as the starter course.”

The next moment he suddenly whirled and struck out like a whip.

***

Isabella’s eyes bulged. “No!” she screamed, as loudly as she could. “He’s got a knife, Jonas, he’s got a –“

Her words were cut off as the stag leapt behind her and wrapped an arm round her throat, cutting off her cry in one choke.

Jonas stiffened and brought one foot up hard as the gentleman lunged towards him, kicking the roll cleanly out of his hands so that it flew up into the air in a clatter of sharp blades. They splayed themselves over the floor in a shimmer of silver, and Jonas let out a cry as one of them pierced his side. But the eunuchs pinioned his arms helplessly, and Niko easily ducked out of reach of Jonas’s next lunge, picking up the largest of the cruel knives and caressing it lovingly with his thumb.

“A feisty little dish, aren’t you?” he taunted, moving around Jonas in slow circles, eyeing him as if he were a cowering rabbit that he was imagining skinning. “I like it when you fight back. Makes the final meal all that sweeter.”

Isabella struggled fruitlessly against the stag’s embrace and she could see Jonas gulping in fear, his legs kicking out at empty air in panic, his bushy hair tangled around his eyes. Around them the crowd of watchers gasped excitedly, the scent of arousal building, many of them pushing each other aside, nostrils flaring, eager to see and taste more blood.

“Let’s see if you taste as good as you fight, shall we?” Niko stepped forward, the blade glinting redly in the darkened light.

Jonas cried out in fear, Isabella brought her fingers up to jab hard behind her into the stag’s eyes and he wailed and released her abruptly. But even as she tore herself from his clinch and ran towards Jonas the swan-man was quicker. He stepped out of the crowd where he had stood unnoticed for the last few minutes and punched Niko’s temple in a swinging haymaker that had Niko drop to his knees like a sack of potatoes, stunned into immobility as clearly as a boxer in the final countdown once he hits the canvas.

In a moment the swan-man had seized the knife from Niko’s nerveless grasp and thrust it at the eunuchs who still held Jonas. “Get off him! Off, now!”

Isabella bent quickly and grabbed two more knives in both hands, whirling them slashing through the air at the crowd pressing towards them. “Get back!” she screamed. “Let us go!”

The eunuchs dropped Jonas’s arms unwillingly and Jonas lurched forward, hand clutching his side. For the first time Isabella could see a thin slice of blood welling through his shirt; maybe from the scuffle, or from the touch of a stray blade, she couldn’t tell in the confusion.

“Are you all right!” she cried in panic as he doubled over, clutching at his side. “Jonas, Jonas, can you hear me?”

“Quick, we have to get out of here!” cried the swan-man, grabbing Jonas around his waist to support him, and whirling Niko’s knife in the other. Isabella leapt to his side, blades pointed warningly at the others who circled them. “Back! Let us through!”

The swan-man swung his knife and slashed a great rip in the scarlet tent behind them.

“Through here! Keep together!” and Isabella stumbled with them into the darkness and chaos of the party, back-to-back and knives held out for protection, like gladiators in an arena full of circling, starving animals.

“Back! Back!” Warily the masked crowd opened to let them pass but they didn’t fall back, instead they closed behind the fugitives in a unit, warily, like bees swarming around an intruder to their hive, or piranhas circling an animal which has fallen struggling into their pond. Horns and whiskers and trailing pagan headdresses crowded behind them, masks and makeup gazing at them fixedly with the green blank stares of wolves and the yellow baleful eyes of goats.

Isabella slashed wildly out at a couple of the more daring who had darted towards them, and they retreated just out of arms-length. But still they followed the fugitives in a long shuffling column, remorseless as marcher-ants on the scent of prey.

“Where now? Which way?” shouted the swan-man over his shoulder, and Isabella pointed frantically. “Through there! There’s a door!”

***

“This way! This way!” Isabella led the escape as they ran through the twisting iron mezzanine walkways, red toga streaming behind her, small bare feet leaving dark prints over the dusty floor. “This is where we came in, I’m sure of it!”

Even stumbled behind her, Jonas slumped on his shoulder. All his energy was directed on dragging the smaller man along through the dusty gloom as the file of their pursuers issued through the door behind them, like beetles or woodlice spilling uncontrollably out of a rotten log when it is overturned. Out of the corner of his eye he could see some of their followers slip through other walkways to other doors and he bit his lip in fear; there could be many other ways out of this maze of storage rooms, and they could be cut off and surrounded well before they even reached the door that they’d come in from –

“This one!” Isabella was tugging furiously at a door that shrieked as it opened. “Here -!”

Her call ended with a stifled squeak of panic, and Even saw in a moment that his instinct had been right. They had reached the large threshing-room of cabers, but the other side was already filled with waiting, sinister party-creatures.

Niko lurched at the forefront, held up by two of the large eunuchs, his puffy, bloodied face already swollen to grotesque proportions. Only one long thin walkway separated them, and the crowd were already edging forwards over it like a feral pack of dogs.

Even looked wildly from side to side; only one door in the corner remained accessible for their escape, and before they could all reach it, they would be brought down by the sheer weight of the crowd only feet away.

“Put me down,” Jonas groaned faintly, his body a leaden weight against Even’s arm. “You can’t carry me like this.”

“I’m not letting you go,” objected Even, his eyes flickering over the sea of faces watching them. “You can’t run!”

“Shut up, Jonas,” hissed Isabella, her breath coming laboriously from her chest like a greyhound on the final sprint.

“Well, well, well! I couldn’t have wished for better entertainment.” Niko reeled forward, speaking with difficulty from his swollen mouth. He leaned forward and theatrically spat out a bloodied tooth which tinkled onto the floor. “And this kind of party diversion I’m not even going to have to _pay_ for.”

Even felt Isabella start shrink behind him, and without thinking what he was doing, he put an arm protectively around her shoulders. She shrugged him off impatiently and elbowed him hard in the ribs.

“Keep your knife away from me and towards them! They’re going to rush us in a moment!”

Niko casually reached into his pocket and drew out a long, thin blade which whipped coldly in the breathy silence. He took a couple of lurching steps down the iron walkway towards them, hand on the thin railing for support.

Even glanced down for any other means of escape but there was none; underneath the walkway where they stood lay only the threshing machines, the wood-strippers and the sharp slicers.

“Let me go,” muttered Jonas again, and Even gazed at Jonas’s shirt in dismay; both their clothes were sodden with Jonas’s blood, and it was this that the crowd was scenting. Jonas had obviously been more badly hurt in the scuffle than anyone had previously realised. His face was sweating and ashen as if all the life was slowly draining from his body.

“I’m done, I tell you,” hissed Jonas, fumbling, pushing Even away. “I can’t – I can’t run, sir.”

“Then I’ll carry you.” Even leaned forward to carry out his pledge, but Jonas shook his head stubbornly.

“I can’t, sir. I really appreciate all you’ve done for me but – I know it. It’s time.”

Isabella pushed forward and shook the wounded man furiously.

“No, Jonas! You’re not giving up! We’re getting out of here, all of us!”

Her veil was askew and Even saw a glimpse of cheek and the glint of long-lashed eyes beneath; a golden curl tumbled down her face and she dashed it impatiently away as she thrust her fierce little face in his.

“You’re never giving up, Jonas, ever!”

“So, little ones, who wants to be my first ingredient?” Niko had staggered closer during their frantic whispered conversation, a freakish sight in his velvet suit stained with blood and sawdust, knife glinting at his thigh. Despite his grotesquely swollen eye he looked keenly at Even, straining to see behind his mask.

“Seeing as I apparently have _three_ of you to choose from.”

“Come on!” begged Isabella, sensing Jonas’s hesitation and grasping at his neck. “We can do it, Jonas, you know we can!”

Jonas looked at Isabella for a long moment, then suddenly leaned forward and kissed her swiftly and tenderly. Even’s heart constricted at the sight. Isabella stared up at Jonas in shock.

Jonas drew back, blushing slightly as if embarrassed at his own forwardness, but at the same time boyishly pleased with himself, with a sudden lightness of spirit about him that hadn’t been there before.

“Get her out of here, sir,” he said shortly, glancing up at Even. “Please,” and then with sudden resolve, pulled the knife from Even’s hand, turned and made straight for Niko.

“No! Jonas!” screamed Isabella but Even caught her round her waist and pulled her bodily towards the door. He could feel her punching and kicking fiercely at him but he held firm to Jonas’s final command as he ran. If the man’s sacrifice was not to be in vain, then they had only a few precious seconds to make their escape. His earlier death-wish to die in this attempt had vanished the moment he saw Isabella, and now all he wanted for himself was to make it out of this place alive with _her_ , to _live_ –

Behind them Jonas stumbled down the walkway towards Niko and the advancing crowd, leaking blood in a dark trail behind him as he did so. Niko’s lips bared in excitement as he stepped forward, knife upraised, to meet the challenge.

Jonas paused a moment, gathering the last of his strength, before he threw himself forward and they both clashed together, rearing up like lunging stallions at mating season; blades flashing in the darkness.

Isabella cried out in grief and fear before burying her head in Even’s shoulder as he gained the final few feet towards the door to the staircase and wrenched it open.

As the first smell of the outdoors hit them, Even turned for a final heart-rending glimpse of the scene behind them; he saw Jonas, down on his knees in the middle of the walkway like a wounded bull at bay, and in front of him Niko, like a black-clothed matador, raising his knife for the _coup-de-grace_ –  

“Jonas!” wept Isabella, and at the sound, incredibly, Jonas gathered himself and sprang up; up under Niko’s descending blow and fastening himself around his neck like a bulldog. Niko staggered under Jonas’s weight, slipped in the pooling blood at their feet, and fell backwards over the railing, down, down through the large gulf below the walkway, and down onto the huge threshing machine’s sharp blades, triggering the lever as he did so.

There was a terrible scream that was almost immediately cut off by the crack and churn of the descending guillotine, and a fountain of blood drenched the standing crowd, spattering them with gobbets of scarlet and filling the air with a putrid, rusty stench. At the sight and smell, the crowd erupted into a maelstrom of howls and screeches, and fell upon each other, biting and rending like wild animals, while some ran madly here and there in confusion, as leaderless and directionless as the inhabitants of a swarming, overturned anthill at the death of their queen.

Jonas staggered, leaned on the railing, and with a final smile over his shoulder towards Isabella, fell motionless to the floor.

Even knew in his heart that he was already dead.

Sickened at the sight, he slammed and barred the door behind them and the horrors inside, hauling the sobbing Isabella down the dusty staircase and out into the fresh, salty air of the docks, where the first light of morning was beginning to break.

 

 

****

**WHOAH I KNOW THAT ONE WAS HEAVY - POOR JONAS - BUT NEVER FEAR, HAPPY EVAK REUNION CHAPTER IS STILL TO COME!!!**


	12. The Greatest Work of Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evak are finally reunited ... but will they be able to pick up the pieces after five years apart?
> 
> (DUH! Of course they will! A happy and romantic (and banging) chapter after all the angst!!!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been fantastic writing this verse and delving so deeply into Victorian society and queer genderfluid history, I've loved every moment!
> 
> I'm delighted that the talented beautiful genius Mari who illustrated for this fic has produced a bonus gallery of fanart dedicated to this fic, so we'll be posting that on the weekend! Go check out her tumblr and give her some love! http://miranhas-art.tumblr.com/
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented on this fic - it's always lovely hearing what you think, and I'm glad that it's found a special place in your hearts too!

 

“Put me _down_!” Isabella pummelled at the swan-man fruitlessly as he stumbled along the cobblestones with her slung over his shoulders, putting as much distance as he could between them and the ghastly warehouse. “We have to go back for Jonas, we have to – !”

The swan-man slowed to a stop once they reached the long sweep of the icy harbour; lowering her gently down onto her own two feet.

“We can’t, Isabella,” he said softly, in that deep warm voice. “It’s over.”

“No! He can’t be – he can’t be –“

Isabella couldn’t bear to say the word. Her voice was breaking in passion, but despite her protests she couldn’t get her feet to move, or to run back into that infernal place. Her whole body was shaking from terror and from witnessing the dreadful means of Jonas’s end – and worse, she couldn’t get over the idea that, once again, a second man had died for her.

The black night was starting to fade; around them the long glimmering fingers of the dawn were beginning to poke over the dark sea, spreading tendrils of rose-gold over the dark water. The clouds on the horizon were tinged with red from the coming day and turning everything to pink; it was hard to see the difference between earth and sky in the pale light.

Isabella plopped herself down on the low stone harbour wall, buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She dimly felt the swan-man take off his jacket and put it round her for warmth but she couldn’t thank him, instead leaning helplessly against his shoulder as she cried out the shock of the night’s events.

“Oh Jonas,” she sobbed. “I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

The swan-man took off his mask and threw it down, wiping his face from the tiny, gauzy feathers that still clung to his sweating skin. He sat next to her, in comforting, respectful silence, while she mastered herself, dried her eyes and dabbed her nose on the lapel of his expensive jacket.

“What will you do now?” he asked at length, staring at the ground, his voice raw and hoarse from the efforts of their escape.

Isabella’s hat and veil had been dislodged in the struggle, and heedless of the fact that she was outside – what did anything matter any longer now Jonas was dead – she took them off dismally and ran her hand through her hair, sighing.

“I don’t know. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

Her head was whirling; in only a few hours her life had changed absolutely – Chris gone, Jonas slain – and no ticket to America.

“Don’t look down,” she murmured to herself automatically. “You have to keep looking forwards. The trick is, even if you think you’re going to fall, just keep going.”

“What – what did you just say?”

The man sat up straight at her words and turned towards her fully for the first time. His face was suddenly illuminated in the first rays of the sunlight that turned his skin to gold, and she froze; she _knew_ that face, knew it in her bones, it was a face that had been engraved in her memory and her stomach for years, a face that her lips knew and her cock knew, a face that she would never, ever, forget –

“Even!” she whispered, as if recalling a long-lost incantation. “ _Even_?”

*** *

Even’s heart stilled in his chest and his blue eyes widened as he took her in without hat and veil, golden curls mussed and falling around her shoulders, her face tear-stained and running with makeup, that only served to make her more heartbreakingly beautiful to him. For a moment he lost the power of speech, and he heard the invisible, soundless thrumming of strings between them again, before the music burst into full melody in his head.

“I knew you couldn’t be dead,” he whispered after a long moment, his heart thumping. “I just _knew_ it.”

The next moment the side of his face exploded in a hard slap, and raising his hand to his bewildered cheek, too surprised for the moment to feel pain, he saw her rise up in indignation, his jacket still swinging too-large off her narrow shoulders.

“You left me!” she cried furiously. “You _left_! You swore you would _never_ leave me!”

Even stared up at her, his brain thundering in confusion. “You – they told me you died in Gaustad,” he stammered, hardly able to form the words. “They – I saw your grave.”

Isabella’s face dropped in sudden fear and she raised her hands to her mouth.

“I – they weren’t wrong,” she whispered, fresh tears glinting in her green eyes. “It was – something happened to Magnus.”

“ _Magnus_?” asked Even, with a tinge of bewilderment; he hadn’t thought about Magnus for _years_. “What about Magnus?”

Isabella shook her head. “It was _him_ , Even, he _told_ on us –”

Even started to speak, but Isabella stamped her foot to quiet him. “But then he tried to put it right again, he did, he pretended to be me for a few hours, but it turned out so _wrong_ –”

Nothing she said was making any sense right now, because the music thundering in Even’s head was reaching symphonic proportions; _his_ Isak, his _Isabella_ , here, _alive_ , not rotted in a cold grave, but standing in front of him in a scarlet sheet and an oversized jacket, radiant with anger like some Roman goddess of war.

He felt overwhelmed, consumed with confusion and elation, but above all, on top of everything, he felt the overriding urge to laugh; laugh like a god watching the gambols of mortals and their infinite stupidity, he had been _right_ , not crazy _all this time_ –

“Why are you laughing?” demanded Isabella furiously at his reaction. “What’s so –“

Even shook his head, unable to explain, or even speak. He reached up to touch her hand, entranced at the warm flesh beneath his fingertips, but she shrugged him away, furiously.

“But I got out, Even, and you’d _gone_ – they told me you went to Greece, you _left_ me –”

She couldn’t finish, face crumpling as she stared at him. “You swore to love me _forever_ ,” she cried, hiccupping with ugly sobs. “You swore to love me always.”

“I did, I always did,” laughed Even, struggling to his feet and pulling her to him, kissing the hot tears from her eyes over and over again until he felt her little angry form start to soften and melt into his arms as if the laughter of the gods itself was proving as intoxicating as ambrosia .

“I kept my promise, you know,” he murmured into her hair. “I never stopped loving you.”

Above the horizon the sun burst into its full glory and turned the whole sea to shimmering light; the heavens and the earth were divided once again into their proper places, and it felt once again to Even as if they were standing at the very centre of everything.

“Neither did I,” whispered Isabella as she wound his arms around his neck. “Neither did I.”

It felt like they had been kissing forever when the first carts of the day started to rattle over the cobblestones and they broke apart, laughing like children on Christmas morning. The fresh sea breeze nudged the discarded swan-mask and sent it bowling away, and around them a few last fluffy feathers were whipped up by the gusty wind, blew over the sea, and disappeared.

*** 

Isabella was dancing; light on her feet and the sun warm on her face, she was being whirled round and held close by a tall man with fair hair that sparkled in the sunshine. She could hear the music soaring in her head, a tune sweet and plaintive, that flowed into her heart and made her laugh with joy and recognition.

_When you were sweet sixteen_

_The world held naught but joy in store for me –_

But this time it wasn’t a dream; the fair-haired man was against her, inside her, his mouth warm on hers and the smell of him all around them in the deep white bed of the hotel room that they had so hurriedly purchased. The dream was real now; she pressed herself against him, arms locked around his neck, her eyes open, she didn’t want to miss a single moment –

“Oh God,” Even was whispering beneath her, kissing up her neck and nuzzling into the soft place underneath her ear. “You smell – you smell just the same.”

Isabella put her forehead to his and breathed him in. Everything was so familiar and yet so different, like a recurring dream that transports the dreamer into a whole new universe. Like the strange looking-glass world of Alice in Wonderland, everything she had ever known had been turned upside down and inside out, but had become infinitely the more beautiful for it.

Even remembered everything; how she loved to be held and how she liked to be kissed, the way she liked her bottom lip gently bitten, the tender places around her hips that would make her squeal when he squeezed them, as she pushed herself against him in greater and greater need, panting in his ear.

“You’re here, Even, you’re _here_ – ”

And she remembered the smell of his hair, the shape of his long neck and his broad shoulders, now more solid and muscle-bound than the skinny youth she had loved that long-distant summer, but still sweet and tender and infinitely loving as he gazed up at her, entranced, hips stuttering as his hands ran up and down her body, over her bottom and along her thighs, shivering with mingled desire and delight.

“I’m never leaving you again,” he gasped. “Never.”

Isabella brought her knees up high and let herself sink back down to him, curving her back and raising her face to the ceiling in bliss. Even groaned and thrust up to meet her, pulling her hips close as if he couldn’t bear to be apart from her, not even by an inch. Her eyes closed, body rocking blissfully to his movements, and for a moment it was as if things had never changed. She was back in the sunlit lake, melting into him like honey; and even though the hundreds, if not thousands of men that she’d fucked over the years still stood between them, Even’s touch still felt for her like the very first time.

“Ohhh,” Even moaned, as she circled her bottom around his aching cock, rising and falling up and down his shaft like a ship on a sea. “Do that – do that again, Isabella.”

She could feel her skin flushed and electric against his in a way that she hadn’t known for years; having a man now making love to her and not merely using her as a vessel, in movements so tender and loving made her laugh out loud, dizzy with disbelieving happiness. No longer did she have to turn her energies to relieving someone else as soon as possible with her mind trained on other things; now she could take her time, savour her lover, drink him in slowly and intoxicatingly until she was half-mad with delight.

His long body arched up beneath her in urgent, desperate thrusts as if he still couldn’t quite believe she was his; his fingers caressing every part of her skin, squeezing the plump inside of her thighs and stroking her stiff little cock as she ground against him, trying to bring him in further, deeper, more –

“Are you there?” whispered Even as he started to pump her hard in his final excitement. “Are you there, Isabella?”

“I’m here,” gasped back Isabella, her thighs trembling, falling forward onto his stomach in bliss as her own cock began to pulse in an ecstasy so sweet she could barely speak. “I’m here.”

***

Even drew the coverlet of the hotel bed aside tenderly and looked down at the sleeping Isabella in his arms.

She looked thin and exhausted like a sparrow at the end of a long ocean flight, her breast rising and falling as she slumbered with a tendril of golden hair fallen over her face.

He brushed it back and kissed her temple and she groaned faintly, rolling over and her eyes flickering open in panic for a moment, before her hazy glance caught sight over Even.

“It’s you,” she whispered, nestling into his shoulder, a small smile breaking over her face. “I thought – for a minute it was all a dream.”

“Some of it was,” murmured back Even, gazing down at her, entranced. “At least, the bad bits were all a dream, I like to think.”

Isabella dimpled and raised her mouth to be kissed and Even lost himself in the softness of her lips for a while, marvelling anew about how warm and real and _there_ she was, the Isak that he had loved and lost, and the Isabella that he had found and loved now. His heart swelled and burst into a million fragments; he wanted to stay forever, in this hotel room, locked away from the world, just kissing and talking and making love like they had for three days straight.

He knew at some point he would have to return to the workaday world – set his affairs in order, instruct his own lawyer to contact Eva’s cousin, and work out how they were both going to organise their assets now that the last few years had been a ghastly mistake.

But all that was a problem for another day, because all they had, right now, was each other.

“You haven’t asked the obvious thing,” Isabella muttered into his chest some hours later. “About – Isabella.”

Even shrugged; he couldn’t care less whether the love of his life was girl, boy or both, as long as they were in his arms and in his bed, looking like _that_.

“I’ve always known,” he whispered in her ear. “Why would it change anything, just because she’s got a name now?”

Isabella blinked surprisedly up at him. “You knew?”

“Of course,” murmured Even. “Remember when you wore my sister’s ballet dress? That afternoon before – everything went wrong?”

Isabella ducked her face shyly into his chest. “Yes.”

Even smiled. “And I said you were the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen?”

Isabella coloured up pink with pleasure, leaned up and kissed him.

“You can call me Isak, too, sometimes,” he heard softly in his ear. “I don’t want to be dead to you anymore.”

***

There was so much to tell each other, filling in the gaps of their stories during the long lost years apart and taking delight in sewing together the scraps of remembrance of what each was doing during that sad, lonely time. They told each other everything, leaving nothing out, as if the telling of it might somehow purge the ugly years from their memories, even though the story was hard and painful, not only for the one speaking but the one listening. Even bit his lip and his eyes narrowed at Isak’s story of Chris and the long-ago dance, while his own voice shook as he told of Mikael and of the last humiliating scene with Yousef. Isak couldn’t meet Even’s eyes as he told of the molly-house and the way Jonas had looked at her when he had realised she was a whore.  

“You don’t think I’m dirty?” Isak whispered hesitantly as he faltered to a stop. “Because of – everything I did?”

Even shook his head firmly.

“You’re not dirty, you’re wonderful,” he whispered as he moved forward for another kiss. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

***

Isabella stood, looking around the empty deserted boathouse, her mantle pulled around her against the cold. A smell of dust and the lingering scent of roasted pine-cones filled the air. Outside on the grey lake pinched with droplets of rain the swans hunched their feathers against the elements and dropped their beaks to their breasts.

The park authorities hadn’t found a new employee yet; the upturned boats lay forlornly on the ramp in the drizzle next to the two deserted stools, while the pots of tar and brushes still stood stacked neatly nearby.

She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief as Even came up behind her, fixing him with a stern look.

“I want Jonas to have a proper grave,” she said determinedly. “A grand marble one. With his name on it in silver and everything. I don’t want them to throw him into a pit along with all the others.”

“We’ll do it,” Even nodded soberly, putting his hand on hers. “After all, we owe him everything.”

***

**ONE MONTH LATER**

Even looked around the small, deserted studio in satisfaction; he’d packed up all of his good paints and canvases, and the rubble and dirt had been cleared out into hessian bags and the floor swept. Now, without its habitual mess, his studio had an oddly plaintive look about it in the early morning, the place of a home now abandoned, its humans gone and only its memories for company.

 _Art is therapy,_ Yousef had said. _Paint what you need to._

He took a deep breath as he took his sanctuary in for one last time; this was the place he had sought solace in for years, his protection from the outside world which told him he was crazy when secretly he knew he was not, the place that had hidden his secrets, seen thousands of tears shed and many sharp sexual delights too.

The studio had seen every part of him – the good, the bad and the ugly – but even the vivid recollections of the time with Mik now didn’t hurt him any longer. Now he saw those years as only one piece in the long chain of events that had ultimately brought him back to Isak; and it was a chain that wasn’t ever to be broken again.

Now he and Isak would forge their own chain, making new links for the future, and the first of those links would start today.

He stepped forward and took the last paintings that he would ever complete in this studio off the easel, examining them critically, turning them back and forth.

They had been his creative project for the last few weeks, something to look forward to while he settled his affairs with Eva, and found his way through all the vicious tangling with her lawyer-cousin, and the complicated financial arrangements. The project had taken time; requiring special inks and parchments and engraving tools, fine calibrated filigree printing equipment and rare tints, and the all important ingredient – a cup of brewed tea.

Finally the most important work of art in his life was ready; he finished his careful study of it in satisfaction, and looked up at a soft cough from behind him.

Isak was standing cautiously in the doorway dressed in a green frock-coat and white shirt, his long curly hair twisted carefully out of sight beneath his top hat. He looked handsome in his new gentleman’s clothes, and Even smiled in delight at the sight of him, he loved the way that Isak and Isabella would change places so often these days; sometimes he wouldn’t even know himself which one he’d be getting in a morning, or even both in a day, and it was always delicious to be surprised.

“What is it?” asked Isak curiously, reaching out a hand. “What have you been painting?”

Even smiled and held it up teasingly, slightly out of reach. “It’s your going-away present.”

Isak glanced at him sharply. “My – what?”

Even shrugged in that infuriating way he had. “Come and get it!”

“If it’s my present then give me!” Isak grabbed at it, crossly but Even sidestepped him neatly, wrapped one arm around his waist and kissed him hard, giggling at his loud protests.

“It’s two presents, actually,” he allowed soothingly. “Shut your eyes.”

Isak rolled his eyes but shut them obediently, so Even took advantage of the sight to steal some more kisses from his boy, before getting down on one knee and slipping two long papers into his small hands.

“Now. You can open your eyes now.”

Isak stared down in incomprehension, his bright face flushed with astonishment. “No,” he breathed. “You didn’t.”

“I think they’re some of my best works, actually,” said Even nonchalantly, enjoying his amazement. “They’ve very realistic.”

Isak turned them over and over rapturously, examining every stain and print on the parchment paper, the delicate printing that looked so official, and the beautiful calligraphy of the names on both of the birth certificates in his hands, carefully aged and artfully stained with tea, so that no one, not even the kindly old priest of St Mary’s who had supposedly issued them, could have told the difference.

 _ISAK VALTERSEN_ one read, and the other:

_ISABELLA VALTERSEN_

“You can be whoever you want to be,” said Even, smiling happily at the sight of Isak’s delighted shock. “Do whatever you want. Whenever you want to.”

Isak bit his lip, and a small tear started to his eye.

“I think this is the greatest work of art you ever made,” he whispered.

*******

**EPILOGUE**

**Summer, 1899**

On their last morning in Christiania, the cries of circling gulls soaring high above the harbour met them as they walked along the dock in the early summer sun towards the huge steamer that would bear them first to Liverpool and then beyond to New York. Isabella’s large plumed hat flapped in the wind like a swan about to take flight, the pretty white veil that covered her face snapping in the breeze like the rigging of a ship.

“Where is he?” she said in puzzlement, raising both hands to her hat to secure it. “You said he’d be here to see us off.”

Even gazed around him at the crowded docks in consternation as the ship hooted its five-minute warning signal for departure, a deep, sonorous blast whose echoes hung over the docks like smoke.

“I hope he makes it,” he whispered, as if to himself. “I hope he got the message.”

“We should go,” said Isabella, doubtfully, fiddling with their two tickets in her small gloved hands. “We can’t miss our passage, Even.”

“Just one more minute,” whispered Even, biting his lip. “One more minute.”

“Mr Naesheim!” A familiar voice came from behind him and Even turned around in mingled relief and confusion to see Yousef emerging suddenly from the throng and sweeping towards them like a good angel, in a long white coat and a red scarf hanging around his neck.

“Acar!” he smiled happily and they embraced; Even burying his head on Yousef’s shoulder for a long moment, and Yousef patting him gently on the back with a proud, fatherly affection.

It felt good to Even that they were no longer awkward with each other; there had needed to be explanations, of course, and apologies, and a few months of follow-up sessions to monitor Even’s mental state. But now that Yousef had formally discharged Even from his care, pronouncing him of sound mind and body, he felt that the young psychiatrist was the closest thing to a friend that he still had in Christiania.

“Acar, this – this is the love of my life,” said Even with a look of infinite pride as his hand slid round Isabella’s waist. “Sweetheart, this is the man who saved me, or at least, kept me alive along enough to meet you again.”  

Isabella smiled back nervously; she had heard a lot about this Doctor Acar, and she wanted to make a good impression. She stepped forward and raised her veil. Yousef’s eyes widened in amazement and admiration as he took her in for a second. Isabella blushed; Even hadn’t lied, he was good-looking indeed, and she held out her small gloved hand in greeting.

“Enchanted,” Yousef gave Isabella a low bow as he bent and kissed her hand courteously. “I have heard so much about you.”

“Likewise,” whispered Isabella, shyly. “Thank you for being so kind to Even.”

 “It was my very great pleasure,” said Yousef with a beaming smile in Even’s direction. “I am delighted that everything has come so right for such a special person. It is very rare that anyone I meet on their journey of self-discovery has such a happy ending.”

“Thank you,” murmured Even as he shook hands vigorously with Yousef for the last time. “Thank you – for everything.”

“Safe travels.” Yousef stepped back and tipped his hat to them both charmingly as the ship blasted once more, and there was a general scurry of stragglers towards the ship, and the cries and farewells that floated after them from the crowds come to bid them goodbye. He smiled at them both with tenderness.

“Look after each other. Be happy.”

"Goodbye!" Isabella’s yellow dress billowed about her like a blooming daffodil as she tripped neatly up the gangplank with seconds to spare. Even followed her with the heavy valises, glancing over his shoulder as he reached the top, but the distant, waving figure of his friend had already been swallowed up in the cheering, handkerchief-fluttering crowd.

***

“Why did we bring so much stuff with us?” Even groaned, rubbing his arm as they reached the deck in the eddying crowd of passengers and dumped their cases on the deck. “We can buy things in America too, you know!”

Isabella rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue and told him not to be such a bore; Even wasn’t about to take any of her smarts on this of all days so he placed both hands on her hips and set to kissing the sass out of her immediately. Things became heated so quickly that they might never have found their way to their room in the circumstances, but luckily a supercilious porter was on hand to cool their ardour, relieve them of their luggage, and guide them along the deck to their first-class cabin.

Isabella’s eyes were like saucers at the opulence of the suite; plush carpets, the glittering gold of the portholes, and the large soft downy bunk that they would share during their journey – but most of all from the view through the porthole that looked over all of Christiania.

“Look, Even,” she murmured, entranced, her face pressed to the thick, fishbowl glass. “You can see everything.”

Christiania suddenly looked very small compared to the large ship on which she now found herself, and she found herself searching out landmarks; she could see the rise of parkland that went up towards their old school at Nissen, she could see the dark bulk of the orphanage, and the clock-tower on the corner of the slums under Aker Brygge and the Tjernenspasse –

Everything seemed very small and very far away now, like objects viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, or long-ago like the fairy-tales of a grandparent’s childhood; no longer relevant to the present, and in some parts distorted and frightening, but still they were part of who she had been once, and who she had become.

“It’s an amazing view, indeed,” murmured Even, but his eyes were fixed on her rather than the window, and Isabella dimpled in satisfaction.

She turned away from the porthole, taking off her hat and veil, and settling them in the cupboard with care; she unbuttoned her coat and unlaced her dress, slipping out of her bodice and knickerbockers until she stood naked apart from her white gauzy stockings in front of him, shaking out her long hair that now nearly reached down to her plump thighs.

Even gazed at her, transfixed, and Isabella swung her bottom cheekily as she passed him, before hopping up onto the large downy double-bunk and crossing her legs innocently.

“Whatever shall we do to pass the time?” she asked him in mock-perplexity. “It’s going to be a long voyage.”

“Not long enough,” muttered Even, pulling at his tie and shedding his own clothes with almost indecent haste, before pouncing on top of her and rolling her over and over, tickling her mercilessly as he kissed her over every inch of her body.

Isabella giggled and shrieked in protest, but as Even’s mouth moved lower and lower, her laughter turned gradually into sighs and gasps as she closed her eyes in bliss, lacing her fingers through his hair.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured with difficulty as his soft lips softly swam up and down her aching cock, milking every inch of it with his warm wet mouth as she gasped below him in ever-sharpening excitement. His fair hair brushed her stomach as his head moved back and forth between her stockinged thighs; as her cries became faster and more frantic her clutching hands sought out Even’s, their fingers grasped each other’s hungrily, and interlocked.

Soon every sound in the room was swallowed up in the roar as the ship’s propellers began to turn, churning the harbour water to a mess of white.

Above them the funnels steamed in the blue sky, the boat hooted its departure, and began to slip away down the harbour towards the open sea.

*** 

**THE END!**

**AND THEY'RE OFF TO A NEW LIFE! HURRAH!**

**IN EVERY UNIVERSE!**

**Do leave me a comment to let me know what you thought!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to the amazing Mari for producing such a galaxy of work for this fic and truly making it the most beautiful it can be, and to the fantastic Haveyouever for all her last-minute edits and fact-checks - absolute dream team, I love you guys!!!!


	13. Bonus Art Gallery (Portraits)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful Mari who illustrated this fic actually went above and beyond in producing a huge gallery of art to accompany it! So we thought you might want to have a little look too - and we'll be posting more tomorrow along with a teeny-tiny lil' epilogue - so do go check out her tumblr at http://miranhas-art.tumblr.com and show her some love!

**Chapter One**

**Even: “Don’t touch me. I’m an unspeakable – of the Oscar Wilde sort.”**

 

**Chapter Three**

**Yousef – “God does not play dice, and as such we must trust that there is a place in a wider plan that all people – no matter what they are – have a part in.”**

 

**Even – “If I don’t have love – whether it’s with a man or a woman – I’m not myself _.”_         **

 

**Chapter Eight**

**Chris - “I’ve done many, _many_ bad things in my time. You’re in good company, Kitty-cat.”**

****

 

**Chapter Six**

**Isabella  – “Jonas … could you possibly … be my husband for the afternoon?”**

 

**Even in Greece: “Will I find him? Will I see Isak again?”**

 

**Chapter Ten:**

**Isabella – “Will you love me forever?”**

 

**Even - “I swear it. I swear it on my life.”**

 

**MORE BONUS MATERIAL PLUS A LIL' EPILOGUE COMING TOMORROW!!! HOLD TIGHT!!!**

**THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT IT MEANS THE WORLD!**

 


	14. Bonus Art Gallery 2 (Scenes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second half of bonus art gallery created by the lovely Mari, depicting other scenes from the "Beautiful Creatures" text. Enjoy!
> 
> (THIRD bonus epilogue follows soon - the last part of the story!!! - stay tuned!)

**Chapter Four:**

**Jonas & Kitten**

 

**“Take my hand, Miss! You’ll catch your death!”**

  

 

  **“I must admit, I’m a bit scared, Issy. If I put a foot wrong, who knows what you’ll do to me!”**

****

 

**Chapter Five**

**Even & Isabella **

  

**“Do I look silly? Do I look stupid?”**

****

 

  **“No, you look beautiful. You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”**

****

 

 

**Chapter Six: Isak & Even**

 

**“The trick is, even if you think you’re going to fall, just keep going.”**

****

 

 

**The Greeks may have had six words for love, but all of them are theirs.**

 

**We hope you enjoyed the bonus art galleries! Do leave us a comment to let us know what you thought!**

**And soon - coming up - a very special bonus Epilogue ... "The Faerie Queene" - stay with us!**

 


	15. The Faerie Queene EPILOGUE!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new century has dawned in New York bringing with it a wave of change - but before they can move on with their lives, Isak has a very important question to ask Even ... and Isabella ...
> 
> So me and Mari were wilding out last night and decided to do a WHOLE EXTRA EPILOGUE overnight for you guys bc we just couldn't say goodbye to this verse - we hope you enjoy as much as we did!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the early years of the 20th century same-sex rights groups started to form in New York and genderqueer and transgender (though these terms were not yet in use) people started to self-organise, advocate for acceptance and produce works of literature and art. Modernism (what we would come to see in the works of Picasso) started in the worlds of art and literature and political movements accelerated to advocate for women's right to vote. 
> 
> The right for same-sex couples to marry was not granted until over a hundred years later, in 2009 (Norway) and 2011 (in New York).

“Oh my goodness,” whispered Isak, his heart beating in excitement as they drove in their glossy new Ford motor-car over the great girdered bridge that spanned the East River, seeing the city rising up in white heaps like sugar lumps around them. It was a breathtaking sight; Isak felt that he always saw Manhattan for the first time like this, in its first wild promise of all the beauty and mystery in the world.

There were things here that he never ceased to marvel at; the overhead electrical cable-car buzzing and sparking, the tall buildings called skyscrapers that were already being built with their chequered scaffolding reaching high into the gauzy blue above the long island where they lived. The new electric and gasoline cars with hooped wheels that purred down the long streets divided pleasingly into square white blocks, the wafer-thin Flatiron Building built like a sharp wedge on the corner, the giant gleaming copper-coloured Statue of Liberty that stood in the harbour with her burning torch aloft.

And there were other things too; everything in the air seemed to speak of welcome change, like a plant fast-evolving to adapt itself to the new century, sprouting out shoots and trailers into parts of life never before imagined. It felt as if the proud, old last century with its rigid structures and roles, was gradually sinking behind them like a floundering iron battleship, while here in this new world everything was bursting into life like a flotilla of brightly-coloured yachts speeding before it on the waves.

Isabella was enjoying herself too; skirts were becoming shorter and more tailored, hair was worn looser and unbraided, and no longer did respectable women need chaperones to accompany them in the streets. Change was spreading all over the world; in London the suffragettes were smashing the windows of Parliament and in Washington they were picketing the White House. Isabella and Even had themselves attended a march for _Votes For Women_ only the week before in the company of fluttering banners and flags all colours of the spectrum.

Even grinned at the wheel behind his motorist’s goggles; Isak’s excitement never failing to please him, no matter how many times they saw this sight.

“Want me to go faster?”

“Keep your eyes – on the road!” gasped Isak as Even swerved at the breakneck speed of twenty-eight miles an hour to miss a horse-drawn cart; the horse shying skittishly at the rumble of the motor and its milk-crates clinking and swaying dangerously in the back. “If you crash the car before we manage to get married, Even, I swear I’m going to – kill you!”

Even laughed as he slowed slightly and they motored down to Fifth Avenue, warm and pastoral in the summer light. There was a fair in Central Park that had drawn most people to it like ants to a honeycomb, so many of the surrounding streets seemed strangely deserted as if the whole city was on holiday. The air was balmy and soft and they walked through the outskirts of the park, looking up at the large fringed trees and skirting the ponds with the chattering groups of black-capped chickadees that swam and paddled in their depths. Sometimes the new world in which they found themselves felt too fast-paced and breathless, and it was a relief to still find quiet places, even in the middle of such ferment. The green spaces of New York felt like green lungs in the turmoil of the city where both of them could finally breathe properly.

Underneath the willow-trees they felt pleasantly secluded and alone; Isak would not have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner. Little by little they let their hands drift together, little fingers gently brushing; it always seemed to Isak like a terrible privation that he could still only hold hands with Even only as Isabella, when he wanted to hold hands all the time, not just when society deemed it suitable.

“Did you mean that?” asked Even at length. “About us – getting married?”

Isak took a deep breath. “Yes. But I want you to marry – both of us. Not just Isabella.”

Even gazed down at him in surprise; handsome in his white linen suit and gentleman’s tie, and Isak, throwing caution to the winds, took both his hands and held them, fingers interlocked.

“Will - will you marry me, Even?”

A delighted smile, like a boy unwrapping a much-anticipated birthday present, spread across Even’s face. He was about to lean forward and kiss Isak when Isak interjected.

“You don’t want to – just marry Isabella, do you?”

Shaking his head, Even began to laugh, his natural instinctive reaction when Isak became insecure and serious. “Really, Isak. What on earth are you talking about? I want to marry _all_ of you – Isak and Isabella both. Why would you ever think otherwise?”

Isak let himself fall against Even’s chest and closed his eyes for a second. “It’s just … everything is so new, here.”

Everything _was_ new; people were talking and writing books about same-sex love and putting names to identities and loves that had never been articulated. Though neither Isak nor Even had sought to define themselves too narrowly before, it was a pleasant shock to discover that there were words for such things that seemed more universal than they had ever imagined.

Over the past year he and Even had immersed themselves in the city and found their way through its many opportunities like water gradually finding its level. Though outwardly they lived quietly in a luxurious flat in Upper Central Park, they had also found the bath-house scene; one of the focal meeting points for young men, naked in the steam or clad at most in white towels like Greek athletes after their exertions. They had explored the taverns and the bars where people like them gravitated together, they had found the literary salons where people discussed and debated banned and shocking books; the political marches and the revolutionary speeches in Madison Square.

“Do you think there’ll be a time where Isak and Even can get married too?” whispered Isak into his shoulder, staring over at the flocks of birds wheeling over the pond.

Even held him close, breathing in the smell of him, so familiar and yet always so exciting.

“I’m sure one day this will be possible,” he murmured into Isak’s temple. “I think this new century is going to change the world.”

***

Even opened the door to their new studio and let out a long, low whistle of incredulity.

“This looks – this looks amazing,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Thank you. This is more than I ever could have imagined.”

“Well I’m glad,” said Sana, his photographer friend, hands on hips, paint-stained and puffing in her long black kaftan. “We’ve spent hours getting your messy old salon into shape and decorating the whole place.”

“When’s the last time this studio ever had a clean?” Even’s writer friend Noora, dressed immaculately as ever in a men’s tailored three-piece suit, strolled up and threw a dusty cloth at Even. Her girlfriend, the beautiful androgne black-and-white movie star Emma, hair cut as short as a boy’s, rolled her eyes from the corner, where she was fastidiously mopping brightly-coloured layers of gouache from the floor after a paint-fight that Isak had initiated the day before.

“All I can say is, just as well you guys don’t get married every day!”

“Shush!” Even glanced behind him, fingers on his lips. “Don’t say anything, Isak doesn’t know. All right?”

Building on his moderate European reputation as a painter, Even had immersed himself in the New York art scene where he eagerly soaked up all the new ideas in painting; styles as diverse and brightly-coloured as all the colours of the rainbow, drawn from the painters of Paris and Berlin and Madrid into one huge melting pot. The Post-Impressionism of the old century had given way to the Expressionism and Fauvism of the new; intense, evocative and primitive painting styles in primary hues that screamed off the canvases to shock the beholder. Artists were even beginning to paint people as cubes, as slashes, as disembodied forms, or to render music or sounds in visual form. Even revelled in such radical ideas; at last he was free to _feel_ , to feel and express himself like never before, and if he spent long hours in the studio glorying in the new-found freedom that his art now brought him, Isak always understood.

(Unlike Isabella, who griped at him whenever he trod footprints of blue and red acrylic through the house and would berate him ceaselessly until he cleaned it up.)

He and Isabella had lately set up their own version of a salon; one where painters were free to mingle with writers and dancers, to explore the fluid notion of identity and to be part of the thriving culture where they found themselves living. Women that dressed as men and men that dressed as women, ballerinas and artists of all genders or none, anyone who wanted to produce art that challenged the norm or explore beyond the physical was welcome. Sana was one of the best photographers of the scene at the moment, and Noora one of the foremost writers; and Even felt himself lucky that he, Isabella and Isak had made such good friends.

“Wait! Am I late? Where is everybody?” There was the slam of a door and the quick noise of stiletto heels in the corridor, and they all burst into laughter.

“Eskild,” said Sana, throwing her brush at the new arrival. “Trust you to turn up once all the work has been done.”

Eskild was one of the most florid characters of the scene; a tall and imposing _raconteur,_ given to flamboyant dress and mannerisms. Today he was wearing a purple velvet dandy's suit with a woman’s silk blouse and high-heeled shoes topped off with a golden scarf made of eagles feathers. He teetered into the studio, open-mouthed at the sight before him.

“It's so beautiful! Why, our little girl is going to be so happy!” Eskild had a soft spot for Isabella, and frequently insisted on giving her guidance on her hair and makeup, whether she wanted it or not. Under his expertise, she was often able to go out in public without any veil at all. He fixed Even with a firm gaze. “She’s been so nervous all day, but we’ve _finally_ got her ready; she's looking like a faerie queen and you _absolutely_ don't deserve her. The question is, is the _groom_ ready?” He eyed Even archly. “If either of you want to call it off, I’m more than ready to step into the breach. You know, like how the groom marries the bridesmaid if the wife cuts and runs.”

“I don’t think there’ll be any need for that,” grinned Even; he was used to Eskild’s teasing although it still made Isak bridle a little. “But I appreciate the thought, Eskild.”

“Everything’s ready for the party when you get back,” said Noora. “Are you going to tell Isabella beforehand, or not?”

“No,” said Even after a moment’s thought. “I think I’ll keep that as a little surprise for her.”

***

The large patrician statues of the New York Central Marriage Bureau frowned down on them as Even guided Isabella through the marble-floored lobby and up to the desk where the clerk was waiting. Isabella shivered nervously in her yellow dress as their footsteps echoed on the floor; she felt as if she was on display in some kind of museum, with everybody staring at her.

“You look beautiful,” whispered Even in her ear. “Don’t be frightened.”

Isabella held his hand as tightly as she could to stop herself trembling. Even was looking incredible in a green three-piece suit and a yellow flower in his buttonhole; for a moment she was seized with terrible fear, what if, at the last, this didn’t _work;_ what if they failed at the last hurdle, what if the registry clerk discovered her, what if –  

“Name?” asked the clerk indifferently, not looking up as they stood awkwardly before him.

“Even Bech Naesheim and Isabella Valtersen,” said Even as confidently as he knew how, and produced from his wallet the folded-up and carefully created birth certificate. “We filed the banns three weeks ago, as you asked.”

The clerk glanced at it and yawned audibly. “Born in Christiania, Norway?”

“Yes,” whispered Isabella, hardly daring to speak; she felt Even’s fingers in hers giving her a reassuring squeeze. He was nervous too, she could feel his pulse beating too fast in his wrist; what if the clerk demanded a check, what if the priest discovered the forgery, what if the clerk looked too closely at her and she didn’t _pass_ , what if –

“And now may the witness swear?” asked the clerk, glancing over to where Sana stood in her long kaftan behind them. “You have known these persons for over five years, and can vouch for their honesty, integrity, and that they are who they say they are?”

“Absolutely,” lied Sana cheerfully with one of her most charming smiles, and only the faintest of winks in their direction. "I swear."

“You have the rings?” said the clerk, and Sana held out her palm, shimmering with gold. "Here."

“Do you, Isabella Valtersen, take this man as your lawful wedded husband?”

Isabella licked her lips, feeling the hot warmth of Even’s gaze flowing over her like wine. Immediately she felt nervous no longer; if they were discovered, then they were discovered fulfilling their destiny. She would no longer feel fearful.

“Yes,” she said, in a strong clear voice. “I do.”

“And do you, Even Bech Naesheim, take this woman, Isabella Valtersen, as your lawful wedded wife? Will you love her, serve her, honour and obey her, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?”

Even’s face broke into an enchanted smile as he took in Isabella standing before him. “I most certainly do.”

The clerk yawned, passing their documents back and reaching for the ledger. “Names will be Mr Even and Mrs Isabella Bech Naesheim?”

“Yes,” confirmed Isabella, with only the faintest quaver to her voice, whereupon the clerk took his pen and wrote their names in a firm looping scrawl in the large register of marriages open before him.

“Under the powers vested in me by the laws of New York City and in regard to the life, liberty and freedoms enshrined in the constitution of the United States of America, I now proclaim you man and wife.”

Isabella and Even gazed at each other in delighted shock, too stunned to move. Behind them, Sana beamed and burst into a fit of clapping. The clerk coughed and shuffled his papers; he had a lot of people to see that day, and two moonstruck lovers clogging up his schedule as they gawped at each other was the last thing he needed.

“You may kiss the bride.”

***

And, just like that, it was done. His mind in a whirl, Even opened his eyes from the long, _long_ kiss to see his wife – Isabella, _his_  Isabella, his _wife_ – staring back up at him from only inches away.

“Thank you,” whispered Isabella, her green eyes dancing with shock and pride. “Thank you.”

Even knew what she meant. “No, thank _you_ , Isabella,” he whispered as he kissed her again. “Thank you for marrying me.”

There was a pop and a flash from behind them; Sana had brought out her trusty Brownie portable folding camera to seize the moment and enshrine it for posterity forever.

“You’re supposed to stand _still_ ,” she complained. “Otherwise the photograph will come out all blurry once I develop it!”

“Shall we go – _husband_?” Isabella dimpled up at him saucily, and he tickled her playfully.

“After you, _wife_.”

Sana threw rose-petals over them as they left the Bureau, and they huddled together in the back of the large Ford double-motor that Eskild was driving as chauffeur, decked out with flower-garlands and streamers. Passers-by waved at them and cheered as the wedding-car drove by; Isabella lay back against him and he smelled her hair; on their fingers glinted their identical gold rings engraved with each other’s names.

Finally – at last – they had their place in the world and Isabella had her security.

Even had told Isabella that a few of their friends would be coming to celebrate their wedding-breakfast with them; however Eskild now turned the car up towards the upper East side and not down towards their flat by the park.

“Where are we going?” asked Isabella as Even took her hand and helped her dismount. “Why are we going to the studio?”

“You’ll see,” said Even, leading her in proudly, covering her eyes. “Now – open.”

“Congratulations!” cried their friends, waving flowers and ribbons. “Congratulations Isabella, Isak and Even!”

“Oh my goodness!” cried Isabella in shock. “It’s so beautiful!”

The whole studio was decked out in blossom like the wood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – purple and white and green and yellow and blue. A huge crowd of their friends – of all genders, persuasions and costumes – stood in front of them waving in a brightly-coloured mass; Noora and Emma holding hands and smiling proudly at her appreciation of their efforts.

“But Even?” gasped Isabella, holding onto his arm. “I thought you said it would be a _small_ party, husband!”

“I lied, I’m afraid, _wife_ ,” grinned Even as he took her hand and got down on one knee. “Because I want all our friends to hear what I have to say.”

Isabella eyed him quizzically. “Why are you doing that? We’re already married!”

“Well I married Isabella earlier today,” said Even meaningfully. “But you said you would like me to marry Isak too, so I would like to speak to Isak a moment.”

Isabella’s mouth fell open, and in her face Even could see Isak appear; awkward and trembling like the first day that he had put on the ballet-dress in that long-ago year the other side of the world. Isabella wasn’t just accessories; there was a whole personality that came with it, so to see Isak taking her place so visibly and in front of everyone despite his terrors of being _seen_ , made Even’s heart turn over with love and pride.

“You said once that you wondered if there could ever be a day that Isak married Even,” said Even, feeling his emotions start to grow and expand in his chest like a helium balloon. “Well that day is today, Isak.”

An incredulous glow lit up Isak’s face as he gazed down at Even, fingers threaded through each other, warm and trembling.

“Isak Valtersen,” said Even taking Isak’s shaking hand and pressing it to his lips. “I can’t remember all that legal speech the clerk made earlier, but I can remember the most important bit. Will you be my lawful wedded husband?”

Isak took a deep breath, tears leaking from his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered, falling to his knees as well and throwing his arms around Even. “Yes I will.”

***

The moon was up that night over the city that never slept; sailing in an ocean of silver above the faint and distant sounds of revelry and merriment that echoed down the Hudson and out over the Atlantic. In the harbour the moonlight glinted off the upraised torch and the studded crown of the Roman goddess of liberty; and spread out into the air over the thousands of souls that lived and loved underneath the brightness of its lamp.

In a sumptuous flat overlooking the park, the curtains billowed open over the large double-bed in their bedroom, as Even gasped and fell forward onto Isak, his mouth opening in a soundless cry. He held onto his husband tightly, feeling Isak’s thighs quivering around his hips and their heartbeats thudding through both their bodies like a drum, as they slowly began to come down from the intensity of the past three hours.

Tonight was their first night as husband-and-wife and husband-and-husband; they had played through all their identities as fully and exhaustingly as possible, and now Even felt at peace as Isak lay in his arms and played with his hair, and Isabella murmured a sweet low song that hung in the air over them like a spell.

_“I love you as I never loved before,_

_I love you as I loved you, when you were sweet,_

_When you were sweet sixteen.”_

It might be a crowded marriage, but it certainly promised to be an interesting one.

“So you don’t regret marrying both of us?” whispered Isak as Even’s eyes began to swim and close to the lullaby.

“Never,” whispered Even, snuggling closer. “At least I don’t regret marrying Isabella; she’s the tidy one out of all of us.”

Isak poked him warningly, and from a distance he could hear Isabella’s laugh.

“It’s your turn to do the tidying-up tomorrow, Even.”

“Goodnight,” yawned Even as he lay on Isabella’s sweet-smelling shoulder and felt Isak’s arms around him. “Good night, my beautiful wife and handsome husband.”

“Goodnight, baby,” murmured Isak as sleep began to bear him away like a drawing tide, and his eyelids started to close under the irresistible pull of sleep so he just caught Even's last words.

“Goodnight, Isak. Goodnight, Isabella.”

 

**THE END**

*******

So THAT was a ride and we’ve enjoyed every single minute! Do let us know what you felt about Isak and Even and Isabella starting out their new life in the “modern world” – and thank you all for enjoying this time with us!

xxx #AltErLove from

Jammi & Mari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND WE ARE DONE! (REALLY!) We just didn't want to let it go so soon! Thank you so much for everyone who's enjoyed our little universe and left us encouraging comments - we really appreciate it and it's great to know how well it has been appreciated! 
> 
> Please do check out Mari’s tumblr on miranhas-art.tumblr.com for a whole host of other treats and send her some love!
> 
> Further reading: The world’s first trans-advocacy group called the “Cercle Hermaphroditos”, based on their wish "to unite for defense against the world's bitter persecution" was active in the early 20th century. Members described themselves as "faeries" or "androgynes” whose "psychical constitution and sexual life approach the [female] type" and rented a room in the gay bar Paresis Hall, where feminine clothes and articles could be stored.
> 
> One such member was the world’s first transgender autobiographer Jennie June – you should check out her Autobiography of An Androgyne which is … quite a read … it chronicles her struggles with her female identity (and her overwhelming need to suck cock; apparently with over 1800 young men.) Check it out here: https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofa00lind

**Author's Note:**

> This is a historical fic so prepare for lots of sex, bodice-ripping, and misogyny! Similarly, as it’s set during colonial times, I’ve often used the “old” words for countries and peoples (non-offensive ones!) and often reference Edwardian attitudes towards women/ sexuality/ identity which by today’s standards may often be misogynistic, uninformed or outdated. Certain terms should be understood; when I write “boy” it actually means “teenager/ youth” (16 and over) and not a child; the word teenager wasn’t invented til the 50’s so to give it accuracy I’ve stayed with “boy."
> 
> Although prostitution was technically illegal in the 19th century, Christiania allowed female prostitutes to operate discreetly as long as they came in for regular medical health examinations under a police-controlled system to stop the spread of disease. It was reasoned that the large influx of workers to the cities in the late 19th century needed prostitutes to satisfy their desires; however male prostitutes were still illegal as same-sex acts were criminalised. 
> 
> End notes:  
> http://sciencenordic.com/prostitution-old-oslo  
> http://sciencenordic.com/hidden-stories-new-norwegian-queer-archive  
> Suicide: https://www.med.uio.no/klinmed/english/research/centres/nssf/articles/culture/Retterstol2.pdf


End file.
